001e e e good evening welcome to the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees today is January 14th 2025 the time is 6:00 p.m. um as we call the meeting to order uh let the attendance show we are missing uh truste CL U Kirk who will probably be joining us soon do I have a motion to adopt the agenda so moved we have a motion by trusty uh Kon second I think I heard trusty sers first but next time I will flip the coin the other way all those in favor please say I I I those oppose nay those abstaining uh motion carries 60 and at this time we will take some uh comments from the public on any closed session items I'll just read a a brief um part as as we allow the
002time to go for those that may be joining uh that are watch viewing us persons wishing to address the governing board on any closed session items May do so at this time a maximum of 10 minutes total is set aside for persons wishing to address the board with a maximum of 3 minutes per person may be allowed no portion portion of the speakers allowed time may be given assigned relinquish or donated to another speaker if you wish to address the board please call area code 559 276 3150 speakers are requested to State their name and to address comments to the Board of Trustees the board is governed by the brown act and may briefly respond to public comments but take no action except on items scheduled on the agenda so we will allow uh the
003requisite time to pass 30 seconds have pass and we have no callers at this time thank you and with that we will um we will move to close session and we will return back in Open session at 7:00 p.m. thank you e e [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] yes [Music] oh w [Music] he [Music] h [Music] [Laughter] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] hey oh [Music] oh oh oh [Music] hey oh oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh oh oh oh hey [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] oh oh oh oh [Music] oh oh [Music] h [Music] wo [Music] oh [Music] h [Music] PA oh [Music] p [Music] pap [Music] la ah [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] w [Music] yes [Music] he [Music] w [Music] he [Music] a [Music] where [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] hey [Music] oh hey oh
004oh oh [Music] hey [Music] oh oh oh oh [Music] oh hey [Music] hey oh oh [Music] oh oh oh oh [Music] oh e [Music] h [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] la [Music] I [Music] n [Music] a e [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] yes [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] w [Music] h [Music] hey oh ohy [Music] oh oh [Music] hey [Music] oh [Music] oh oh oh oh hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey oh oh oh [Music] he [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] a la [Music] he [Music] thank you good evening centr Unified School District Community happy New Year welcome back um The Time Is Now 7:02 p.m. uh as we come back to open sessions uh let the attendance show that trusty Kirk joined us at 6:08 p.m. and on close
005session items E1 we had a motion by trusty CIO second by trusty kfon motion pass 70 on close session item E2 we had a motion by trusty CIO second by truste kuron uh motion pass 70 and with that I'll ask vice president Creo to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please stand ready salute I to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all it next we invite uh Senor Lazo and sindor to share us with us our community engagement information good evening if you if you wish to speak to the board please call 559 276 3150 or fill out a request form provided on the table near the entrance and submitted to the clerk of the board prior
006to the meeting if you wish to speak on an item on the agenda please do so when that item is called if you wish to speak on an item not on the agenda you may speak during the public Comon section of the agenda the district welcomes other language speakers to the board meetings anyone planning to attend and needing an interpreter for a language other than Spanish should call 559 274-4700 extension 10150 by noon on the Friday preceding the board meeting or at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting so Arrangements can be made for an interpreter at thank you s me exens graas we move now to our presentations um with uh assistant superintendent uh Dr Boatright sharing with us who will be some of the school activities presentations for this evening yes so
007tonight we have Eduardo appi casano who is the student representative from class all right good evening board president sing superintendent Davis and governing board members my name is Eduardo p casano and I am an 11th grade student at class I have been enrolled in attending there since January of last year thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening our students have enrolled in both our alternative school and adult school and have been progressing well highlighted by a total of 22 independent study graduates with a total of 24 graduates in our adult school we also had three students graduate from our adult transition program in December over 100 students earned a first quarter academic award in October as a result of maintaining good attendance and having earned a minimum of two credits each
008week throughout the entire first quarter each of these acad make award recipents received a certificate accompanied by popcorn and treats at class you recently celebrated Native American Heritage Month the staff created in informative bulletin boards highlighting Native American indigenous people who have elevated our society and culture with their extraordinary achievements and accomplishments the month cult cult cultivated in an opportunity for students to participate in a craft activity our high school students now have been provided with an additional option to earn elective credit towards graduation requirements by securing employment and completing instructional modules related to work experience and the world of work 10 of our students were recently afforded to to go to the trades and Career Technical education expo at the new Fresno City College West Campus by doing so they were introduced to viable
009and promising career pathways all of our alternative school students are scheduled to take our second reading and math I ready diagnostic assessments throughout the first week of the spring semester as part as scheduled meetings with students parents and teachers when we review and sign our spring semester Master agreements these I diagnostic assessments give us an understanding of our current reading and math levels compared to our scho scores at the beginning of the school year every senior student and their parent are in the process of scheduling their spring semester senior student and parent meeting with our academic counselor during these meetings our academic counselor provid us with important information and data regarding our current graduation status and the pacing that will be required to meet graduation requirements by the end of the school year all of
010our high school students continue to have the opportunity to attend Saturday live on the first and third Saturday of each month from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Saturday live serves as an additional opport opportunity for us to come in work in work on our instructional units receive support from a teacher and take unit assessments the number of students who elect to attend on Saturdays has been steadily increasing the nurse assistant training program has been reestablished at Central Adult School having having scheduled five separate cohorts throughout the 2024 2025 school year the first coher has graduated the second cohort which is offered in the evenings is in the middle of the theory portion of the class while coher started in the clinical portion of their class yesterday the fourth and fifth cohorts are scheduled to begin
011in March and may respectively Central adult school started a new ESL class at te elementary school today modeled up the ESL class that has and continues to be taught at Bola Elementary School these classes serve as an opportunity to help meet the English language development needs sought from our community at locations are convenient for them to attend thank you and good evening thank you [Applause] thank you so much Eduardo for uh sharing on behalf of yourself and the class um students thank you we next invite uh assistant superintendent Dr Lopez to share about our student performance this evening n j board presiden sing Board of Trustees and superintendent Davis today our Mong dance club from Central East High School will perform for you in celebration of Mong New Year which was celebrated in our community
012over winter break so please uh welcome Julie bessera valtier the adviser and performers Chris Stang and Daphne [Applause] lore everyone um I'm Julie Basera I'm the advisor for the Mong dance club over at Central East high camp uh High campus and right now we have two of our dancers and two of our um President and Vice President and they're going to go ahead and say a couple of words before they perform thank you hi everyone and hello all four members my name is Daphne lore and we are from Central East High School today we're going to talk about Mong New Year and why we celebrate it Mong New Year is a time where we come together to honor our ancestors and give things to the end of the Harvest to welcome the new year we're
013going to show you guys a dance a traditional M dance that we have for you all oh you're gonna say oh East High School hope you guys enjoy [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] speee [Music] fore [Music] foree [Music] for Fore for [Music] happy M New Year and thank you for the performance we move on to our employee Association highlights if uh cuta president okay then we'll invite Anga giri from our uh California School Employees Association to come share some highlights not that short good evening need uh president sing and board members and superintendent Davis welcome back hope everybody had a great holiday um I don't have a lot to share I just want to congratulate our new board members on your new positions uh we are delighted to have you on behalf of CCA and
014we hope uh we get to work with you and get to know each other a little bit better and I'm looking forward to um you empowering our students and achieve the fullest potential in our district thank you again for um joining us welcome to Central thank [Applause] you thank you we now turn to our school reports with our first report being from Central Elementary School and we welcome principal Slack thank you good evening president sing distinguished board members superintendent Davis and cabinet thank you for the opportunity to share the great things that are happening at Central Elementary our theme this year has been going for gold our students and staff are dedicated to reaching this goal in athletics Behavior ELD Ela and Mathematics in in academic celebrations we have a lot to celebrate this year
015and be proud of but acknowledge where there's still work to be done looking at the past three years academically our ESC scores have stayed steady with minimal increase in ela we have a seasoned staff they have been there since the school opened many of them with the consistency of our teachers and our staff this is ensured the students and their success but minimal growth demonstrates we need to keep pushing our eles to the next level our teachers have engaged in Opportunities the district has provided to assist in their growth as professionals such as letters pilot programs for phonics and ELD in the area of mathematics you'll see however we have a bit more Improvement and growth and plan to keep that momentum moving forward with the help of Mr jarian heading up in the PC
016p2c our student our teachers are involved in as well as counting Collections and our math math Focus for PD one way we have seen kids get inspired with the opportunities we have here is excited and a way to celebrate their progress on the esac has been through the band jumper recognition the district has provided us to celebrate students who grew in their ESC scores at least one band in either Ela or math and we had a total of7 current fifth and sixth graders increase at least one ban in either Ela or math and 34 out of those 107 grew in both Ela and math and that's something that we went in as the VP and the principal to the class and celebrated with the students and it was very community building and really awesome to
017share those celebrations on how well they did last year something new we tried last year to get students motivated and focused on progress was goal setting it was based on their initial I ready diagnostic score in the fall so we continued it this year each teacher set aside time with students individually and looked to see where they were where they started where they need to go to achieve their typical growth and then where they need to go for their stretch growth now to break that down a little bit more and I typical growth represents the average annual growth expected for a student at third grade level placement level and while stretch growth is more ambitious growth towards targeting designated to put students on a path towards grade level proficiency so shows average progress and while
018stretch grow signifies a more leap towards reaching proficiency that's what we're headed towards so last year we got the idea to give out a total of 446 reading Awards 379 math Awards made up of ribbons and metals depending on if they used uh they got their stretch growth or their typical growth that celebration has inspired our students this year to work on the areas that are needed to move them toward their grade level proficiency with checks in the middle of the year to see where they are in that growth development and then moving forward to the end of the year in our celebration so we're looking forward to how many we will give out this next year a academic opportunities due to our minimal growth we have put into place some support for students to
019get assistance in LA and in math we've engaged the assistance of teaching fellows we have four on our campus one is in the reading lab to help daily one is pushes into our classrooms daily for math support in grades 3 through six our reading lab is staffed by one full-time certificated teacher a certificated substitute and they work with our TK through six students for math we have a certificated substitute that pushes into our grades 3 through through six our teachers have also stepped up and stepped in to support Ela math tutoring for our students 3 through six just before the winter break there's more to come and there's that is being put into place for our students when we look at engagement at Central Elementary we understand the importance of student engagement if students aren't
020connected they aren't present when they're not present they're not learning so we have had a slow increase in our daily tendance over the last 3 years and our chronic absenteeism has decreased as well we started with monthly incentives three years ago when I first started at Central then we went quarterly and this year we're trying semester these rewards are for positive attendance and examples of the incentives that we're using are they get treated to VIP treatment seating snacks a short film extra recess with healthy snacks from our food services a water slide house and different things like experiences like that we also try to ensure that our students feel welcome and seen each and every day as they cross our crosswalks or walk through the doors each morning you can find my vice principal or
021myself assisting students crossing the drive-thru to make sure that they're safe but more importantly connecting with them making sure that they are greeted they're are seen and telling them we're glad you're here also our student liaison is playing DJ to get us going in the morning as the students walk into the cafeteria and teachers give a morning greeting individually with those students as they enter the classroom along with weekly seal lessons incredible thinkery teacher that we have that supports our students who need a break need a a re-regulation of their their energy support from our intervention counselor and energetic staff this has helped raise our score of connectedness with our students from the Panorama survey given this fall some other types of Engagement activities include fun dress up days vapa musical such as Beauty and
022the Beast JR coming in April which we encourage you to come see robotics Pi the principal District Champion Sports and PBIS roundups that happen four times a year based on their performance of our strive for five and and a BMX show is coming this Friday engagement with students is vital but we also strive to be inclusive at Central Elementary and we know that parents and families are a key factor in Student Success we have an amazing Family Outreach liaison Miss Yadira Solaria who has helped us create an environment where parents feel comfortable to come into the office ask for help and share needs through her hard work she has helped bring more parents to our SEC elac and daac meetings she's invaluable when we promote our parent night such a success together that we've been
023doing for two years that has served over 30 plus families in each session that we host for the last two years she has a parent class that meets twice a week in the morning and she's brought in guest speakers such as Dr Lopez information on immigration Workforce Connection centrala Familia parent University with Fresno State and other topics that the parents ask for she has helped me be able to bridge the gap between our non-english-speaking families which has been an integral part in continuing to grow our vision to be an all-inclusive School Community focusing on literacy as Central we have fun but we also are a community of Learners our teachers have engaged in the letters program nine out of 13 TK through second grade teachers are either in their first or second grade year in
024the program I am also in the admin cohort program this year for letters in order to support my teachers this past fall nine out of 13 TK through 2 grade teachers piloted the two phonics program sponsored by the district and it was wonderful to see the excitement teachers had to learn something new and how the students responded we also have an amazing reading lab where 90 96 Kinder through sixth grade students are served daily 27 out of those 96 are English Learners they receive small daily small group instruction to raise the reading levels and we have also made a commitment as a site to dedicate time in our daily schedule to service students in small groups who need the extra support we're encouraged by the progress these students have made with providing that intentional time
025and focus on their needs as a site instructional leaders my VP and I have provided ongoing professional development for our staff in creating a collaborative environment focused on data disaggregation and collaboration that has transformed our grade level plc's into a Forward Thinking team thanks to our solute uh work with solution tree our PLC teams are aligned and cohesive they meet weekly to collaborate on common for formative assessments as well as share the responsibility to ensure all students are moving forward in their Mastery of Standards the administration team is supporting this work by being present in their meetings giving time back on principal days and providing opportunities to dive deeper into culturally affirming practices social emotional learning and the district math Focus aligned to the blueprint and I met with each and every teacher at the
026beginning of the year and worked with them to set professional goals therefore when I have drop-ins or my VP does drop-ins we try to give feedback based on those goals that we discussed and and share and talk about their progress towards those goals in conclusion the Central Elementary community staff parents and Community Partners make every day count for kids from providing resources and gifts for our students in need to providing funding to create lasting memories on field trips like sixth grade camp the science museum gold Gulch and the chaffy zoo our amazing PTA provides many opportunities for our students to enjoy like jagathon Trunk or Treat breakfast with Santa the Spring Carnival and many other wonderful events it takes all of us to create a space where Central Elementary students have the opportunity to go
027for gold thank you questions or comments from our uh from my colleagues from the Board of Trustees trusty Kon uh thank you president Singh uh principal slack thank you for the uh presentation um want to say I think it's really great that you're um you set goals for your teachers but that you're also you know taking the letters training yourself and your uh you know you give feedback based on those goals which really shows that you support your teachers uh rather than just setting expectations you're working to make do your part that those expectations are met um and I think it's great that we have all those community events with um uh with our parents and it's based on what the parents are asking for what they need I know when I talk to parents
028in the area um they're very happy with Central Elementary um I do want to talk about The Chronic absenteeism because that seems to be a really a strong point um in the progress from 23% to uh 16.7 uh what do you attribute uh to this um decrease we have really spent the last I mean this can technically be my my third year but really I've only been a full complete year I came in November 28th 2022 was my very first day and I walked in I said what are we doing let's we got to get some kids here so that was when we started to doing the month-to-month um you know celebrating the kids that were there and then focusing on those kids that weren't so we little step by step um worked that the
029next years you see in 23 24 that great decrease that was one of the things we did we also focused in on calling parents having um an extra sort of instead of just the registar being able to call those parents and and making sure that hey are your kiddos you know are they okay what do you need um also that's when our family lezon came in um so she was able in 23 to help with that and that really started to bridge the gap she is an amazing person um she has this way of just connecting with people and now it's we don't have that problem of parents just not calling in or kids not just wanting to come to school I take that with connectedness really making sure that we have that that relationship
030with the parents as well as the students so that they want to come to school they don't want to miss out on that so you know it's been a pro a progress and sort of a progression of going and doing these these things all together to kind of create the the major decrease well thank you for creating that a positive environment for our kids thank you thank you so much principal slack I I just wanted to again uh kind of share Kudos in terms of that that level of uh I mean really cutting the number by oneir in in terms of uh The Chronic absenteeism just looking at the Califoria dashboard I know like um making sure that we have support for all of our students especially our students uh with special needs can you
031kind of share just some of the supports that uh that you all have at Central Elementary especially for our for our special needs students absolutely we've actually grown um this year we got a new class a um a Kinder through second and so that's really expanded um because we just had three through six and then of course our our our students with uh disabilities in other areas but what we really focused in on is making sure sure we have those supports in place um we've got a great school psychologist that is supports our our parents um he also meets with our teachers he's on what we call our bait team Behavior attendance or excuse me Behavior academic uh intervention team and um we meet at least twice a month and the teachers bring information they
032bring their concerns we sit we we brainstorm together we make sure that things are being put into place um is great to give uh feedback and support to jump in at any time that we need it um also so having our intervention counselor our thinkery our psychologist as well as my VPN are very Hands-On um we are in the mix of everything and I think that's super important because I want to know exactly what's happening on my campus where is the need where do we need to be and how can we help so in in that way sometimes the behavior kind of tends to imp heed sometimes the learning so once we kind of get a handle on that it allows the freedom to have the opportunity to learn so in that case we make
033sure that our um we're starting some training for our AIDs that will help them in small groups so helping um the Behavior Uh piece and now we're looking at the academic piece on how we can meet those needs individually because they are very unique and so um we're beginning that this this uh actually this month and working with our AIDS um our reading teacher is going to help us with that and also just bringing in other um groups like we have a wonderful group um from Central High coming and hanging out with our um students and doing crafts with them and that connectedness with others you know some that might have a little bit difficulty with that is really helping them grow so we are one that if you want to come help Let's Do
034It um because we are a great community of Learners and whatever your pace is we willing to meet you right where you are thank you so much love that connectivity thank you so much for all the great work happening at silent elementary school thank you sir next we invite uh um principal marashian of heren barcel elementary school good evening president sing board members brand new born members and superintendent Davis thank you for having me um are we oh do I need to just change the slide myself all right oh I don't need to hold the button thank you okay okay all right I'm excited to speak to you guys about my wonderful School hernon Barstow um it's my third year uh Miss uh Miss slack and I came in pretty close at the same time
035so we've we've uh we've had some nice growth I'm really proud of that and so getting into that our academic celebrations we have we've we've shown a lot of growth academically um with over the last from TW uh last year to this year and so I'm I'm very proud of that like starting off the year we did great I ready uh our f&p started off in a much stronger way than it did u in years past due to some of the things we're doing with literacy um our our Smarter Balance our Smarter Balance math and Ela did grow I'm going to get into that in just a moment um and our elpi um English learner progress indicator We Grew From A we were in the Red Zone on the California dashboard and we were able
036to move into green um so a lot of growth there but with that you know there comes a lot of a lot of opportunity as well so you think about our our growth in in Smarter Balance we had a 1.8% Ela growth that's not high enough you know um not that you know we're proud of our students but we can we can continue to increase that which um you know we we are working strategically to do that same with math and then the other thing you think about um we we moved into the green on our in our elpi but that's 47% of our students making progress on the elpac that means 53% uh either stayed the same or went down so lots of opportunities for growth and so um through strategic planning through use
037of our um iabs f ABS but and and then and then really like digging down to like well where are we where are we missing the beat uh where are we missing the boat that's where we um you know we're we're digging deep and we're we're being strategic so um and I'm really excited because we're starting our after school tutoring we've been doing that in math for the last several years but uh we're we're going to be working with our our long-term elel students um right now so that's that's new for us in the after school um but those are you know lots we're very proud of what we're doing but but there's lots of opportunities uh to continue improving um moving on to engagement it's always been a strength um at Hearn and Barstow
038but I I'm really proud and and I constantly am checking our attendance rate but we we're improving yearly this uh rate on on that has us at 95.9% but uh unfortunately due to some foggy days we're at 95.8% as of this morning but um another change on The Chronic absenteeism the end of uh 22 23 we're at over 20% chronically absent and then as of today uh we're at 10.8% and at this time last year we were at uh roughly 5% higher 15.6% chronically absent so we're doing a lot of work to just bring people in and and that goes to uh building a partnership with our parents and our students but um so one of the things like we you know a lot of things we've doing for years uh with our attendance Awards
039and whatnot but but what we're trying to do now is just get on top of it before it becomes a problem so teachers will recognize when a student has been missing or has been tardy and we get on the my VP and I and our liaison we get on the phone and just just trying to trying to build a partnership trying to figure out what's going on how can we help it's not a gotcha or anything like that it's like hey we're all in this together this is why attendance is important so we're bringing them in and then um in the gar Justin Garza area we all all of the schools we started doing these um empathy interviews where we bring the kids in who are chronically absent asking them questions like how do you
040feel about school like what are the barriers to getting you here and in a lot of times 95% of the time especially with Elementary you find out they love school and there is some barrier you know sometimes both parents are working sometimes it's an alarm clock issue you just you know you're able to give them those things we're able to make plans with families it's just all about the partnership um and then uh speaking of that partnership we we've partnered with our community to to create some engaging and um engaging experiences uh for our families um one of the things I was excited about um was we have our principal coffees but our students are going to be with the boundary changes are going over to Glacier Point and so one of our princip we
041had coffee with the principles and I brought Adam Hogan from Glacier over and so he he came U next month we're going to bring um his VP who um she's going to be be able to meet with parents she speaks Punjabi which is we have a lot of Punjabi par families at our school so so excited about the partnership uh with with Glacier but you know just bringing in uh speakers I I had coach Von Webb come in during Red Ribbon Week speak about um the dangers of fentanyl we had Miss Fresno County which was exciting for our our fifth graders but but it's just bringing uh you know bringing people together giving the parents um reasons to be on campus uh another thing that I was excited about was just our in Panorama our
042parent engagement barriers to engagement like kept increasing so the other thing I've been a big proponent of is having something for every student like a lot of kids are into sports drama music but there's you know not everyone in so I've tried to create something outside of the classroom for for most kids and so we we we have some clubs that we've started and this this year very excited about our chess club so I have over 30 Members First Year we started a little bit last year but first full year um over 30 members I took them uh to the Central Valley there's Central Valley Scholastic chess Association uh tournament and uh we had a fourth place finisher and the whole thing and Hearn and Barstow Place forth tying Manchester GATE and then there was
043a few Clovis schools above us but it was our first time and we were right up there with the big boys I was like yes you know we're on the map with chess so a lot of fun I was I really proud all right moving on okay focusing on early literacy work so um we we also we have several teachers going through the letters training we have um our entire second grade team one of our our our newest uh first grade teacher and and we've had uh teachers go through the TK program as well so that that Stu teachers are using using these strategies uh in addition to our K and second um they they were they have been involved in the pilot um for ufly and 95% group and and it's like being used
044with Fidelity and I know that because when I walk walk into the classroom and I see it often number one but you also are you can tell by the students they're they're used to it it's part of the routine and it's starting to really show so very proud of them but the main thing uh I love is that you know been a work in progress over the last few years but it's just in our primary classes daily guided reading it's been something I've been talking about and then last year there were still a few like you know like there were some barriers and there was one one teacher in particular had a barrier didn't want to mess up and so I said okay come watch me and so I went in there and I taught
045in a first grade class taught gu guided reading and she said oh yeah I can probably do a little bit better than that and she went back and she she's been doing great so very proud of that also uh you know daily daily ELD um right now we we're like I said earlier we want to move those we want to get our elpi even higher I mean really everyone should should be able to grow and that's what we're hoping for but um daily gu daily ELD and we have uh um Marcy Brey our our our newcomer teacher she's she visits us several or like twice two two to three times a week we have nine newcomers so um we're we're doing great things with that and and um in fact we are having our we're
046having an ELD uh professional development tomorrow during our staff meeting so it's just like we just want to keep getting better um there more strategies that we can share okay um accountability and continuous Improvement one thing I didn't even bring up which is like the like the main thing we're focusing on all year is just increasing the rigor of our instruction and so everything from our PLC work to the way that um VP sickler and I give our feedback to teachers is is just with the focus of rigor and um and so and teachers kind of get sick of hearing it but they understand what it is is because during our staff meetings we share strategies we um we give sentence stems we are showing examples and and so um each uh during the plc's
047and and um during the plc's um with that idea focus of rigor each of our grade levels to start the year uh gave our gave themselves two smart goals that um were centered around their the essential standards and and their plc's just just kept um coming back to that each each week and and using you know use of f abs and iabs and other common assessments like the Wonders weekly assessments they're using that to just figure out like okay what does our data look like how can we improve this instruction um where do we go from here and so that so it's going going well and like I said when we have when we're giving feedback we're we're focusing on the rigor we see we're focusing on the strengths of of the instruct C we
048see in the classroom so that teachers can build on that and and take it to the next level and um and then we're also like I um I was I brought up with our Marcy Brey but we are bringing in um we're bringing in resources our our coaches from the district to help us out um our our technology coach um math math coach as well chaparian so we're we're just continuously as grade levels our plcs are are just continuing to improve and then and then we as a staff we're we're working to improve that as well just just keep making it um count for kids and then here right with that being said let's make it count for kids so one of the final things I'm going to talk about is something I'm excited about
049something unique or unique to us this year is just our our school service jobs for our fifth fourth fifth and sixth graders um what we've done is we've turned it in and there's jobs you know there's flag Patrol there's cafeteria announcements that Library helpers but what what we've done is we've created a situation where students are creating resumés and it's not with every one of them but with a lot they create a resume they have to apply for every job and then they sit through an interview so it's creating some initiative on their part they have to be brave enough to go through that it's it's not easy we we make it you know as easy as possible but but they they take it seriously and then with their jobs they have to be on
050time they have to do you know do do you know play their role and so it's teaching responsibility and finally it creates this Pride so you're you're setting up the library and you put your books in place and then you see your your classmate just you know putting the book somewhere else or or dog earring your the page you're like hey that's not how we treat our books you know you create the pride in the school and overall you're creating leaders and so I'm just really excited about that but we have a lot of work to do we're doing great things but um but you know we're going to continue getting better so thank you and if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer trusty sidu uh hello um so I just wanted
051actually um uh it was a very creative the last Slide the way you're having kids make resumés and stuff so I just found that an amazing thing uh I remember me going into high school is the first time I heard the word resume so and it was like a very like daunting task you know so if they are introduced to these things that an early age is not scary when they get a little older so I just wanted Tola applaud you for that effort thank you I have a question trusty Chavez hi uh so again very Innovative and I just am curious um I know that there's not obviously as many positions as you have students so how are those students selected maybe you said that and I missed it you know we I I'll
052be honest I hope they don't hear me we haven't no one's been turned down from a job yet when they they're they're they're technically you that by uh anyone who not yeah there's not enough positions for every student but not every student applies right so we have you know we have a tech committee and there there you know if we had seven people apply we would find roles for for those um as of right now I would say probably 20% of our students um are in those roles so so that'll be something that because it's also tied to our um tied to an award like that's one of the ways you can earn points I think it's going to continue growing so then then it will become a dilemma like oh yeah we really need
053to think this thing through so this is where I'm going with that question is um we have those young people who are going to take the initiative and really seek out those jobs but I think one thing I would encourage you to look at are those young people who tend to sit back perhaps because they may come from backgrounds where they might not be as confident or they may not be as vocal and may not be as able to come forward so I'm hoping that that can be built into the selection process to specifically Target those students who could really benefit and may not seek it out on their own if that makes sense like a tap well hey maybe this would be a great position for you because in my experience specifically with young
054people who who um have what would be labeled as you know behavioral challenges or have attendance issues if you give a young person a job they will rise to that occasion and they become so much more invested in campus so I think this is a wonderful idea I just would encourage you make sure you keep that lens when you're looking at the students that are applying yeah I love that idea thank you trusty Cel thank you um thank you for the presentation and I'm I'm glad to hear and see the growth gr that's occurring I also just want to commend you um in addition to providing those jobs for our students just building the relationships with Glacier Point and bringing those different speakers I think that's great because across our district it's it's an adjustment
055um for our families and our students and so uh just thank you for for thinking about that and and incorporating that into um your current relationships with the students and the community so thanks thank you trusty kuron uh thank you president Singh uh and again there's a lot to celebrate in this with this presentation I think that it's clear we know with viewers and also principal slack that you know schools that are involving students and having a real Community Focus are the schools where we're seeing a lot of this growth especially in absenteeism because that makes students want to be at school um and yeah with with your academics you know the uh increase in Reading um you actually doubled your uh the math scores with I ready so that is uh great and also
056the absenteeism cutting that nearly in half um can you point to maybe two or three things that you'd say are really driving these growths and in the yeah in in the in the ab reducing absenteeism or and the uh math increas well first in in reducing absenteeism I I really truly believe it's it's it's about connecting with not just the student but the family like figuring out the there there's there people people want their kids to be at school and so and so it's it's when we open up our the line of communication we bring them in and and make it a safe place and so so so that on that like that's just that's the work we've been doing and we've we've we've uh done everything we can to create a warm atmosphere for
057families and and for kids so and and then there's also the follow through like okay we've had the conversation but then let's follow up with that that family afterwards and so I I believe that that has been a major contribution with math it's really um looking at looking at the essential standards seeing where where the the our students um you were lacking in the previous grade and being really strategic about not only what um you know the assessment like we give the assess Ms the benchmarks the fiab the interim assessments and then looking at that data not just doing it but looking at it figuring out okay well we're still missing here so let's get this small group going and and teach excellent and I think it's great that you're focusing on increasing rigor and
058the scores don't go down they go up yeah so I think that's great and I think you and the other principal mentioned um our stem math director of Greg chaparian so could him as well seems to be doing great across the district um with your um absenteeism because that's going down and I'm really hopeful that we're seeing growth here across our district but you know some sites are growing a lot faster I was wondering if you talk to other principles in our district and are sharing what's working for you and see if we can have that kind of coll cross sight collaboration to reduce absenteeism yeah we we actually during our um like each each of our areas has has worked on something different but our uh the the Garza area we worked on chronic
059beating chronic absenteeism improving it and and so then yes we do share that's all shared we we get together as principles and we share those the best practices and and then you know they have what they're working on so it's it's it is something we take ideas from each other and and it's it's a great yeah I'm glad you're collaborating with you know Garza and probably Rio Vista too because your students go to those same schools and um maybe across families so that can help uh you know reduce abent of that one site but really across the whole family and across other schools so um thank you for your work here yeah thank you thank you principal marash and I just want to yeah thank you for those connections uh especially with our new School
060attendance foundaries especially with h Glacier Glacier and Garza and I I just had a quick question I mean um the conference you all have been instilled especially in your recently class reclassify DL students is just so Stellar can can you kind of share a little bit what what have been sort of the successes they've especially had in in terms of their math and Ela scores and I'm pulling this from your the California dashboard which we'll be hearing about next so you're saying the the the the performance of the students who have reclassified it's well I just I I'm going to say this I'm number one if you are able to learn a new language and master it like you're doing something you're doing something right so so these students I'm not it's not that not
061hands off but these students are already self-motivated so we've figured out where you know as teachers I've got a great group of teachers but they when they have they have these students who you know think about the strategy of of helping a student move out of the ELD it's the same when when you have students who you know in math like what what is the missing piece here and and so um you know then you you can build on that but you have you you have a self motiv you have a really motivated kid that is is reclassifying so we just take that and we harness it and and we move them forward it's exciting when when we reclassify that's to me like I love I love Smarter Balance all those things but reclassifications like
062that that's the data I'm looking for thank thank you so much I think just the idea of learning that other language how much that's a that's a strength for all of our students in our community thank you so much for all the work you all doing thank you thank you [Applause] on that note and where I was drawing my information we're going to receive information regarding the California school dashboard from uh assistant superintendent Dr Boatright all right thank you so much for that introduction we'll go ahead and get started here so the California school dashboard this is a local tool I'm sorry this is a tool that shows how school districts and school sites are performing on State and local indicators that are included in the California school accountability system all right so there are
063a total of six indicators that are represented on the dashboard academic performance oh no go back okay stay there thank you academic per we're going to get in sync here academic performance um for ELA and math this is the first indicator so these measures show how well students are meeting grade level standards and are based on student performance on the smarter balanced assessments or we call them espac science has also um been added to the dashboard this year but actual performance will not be shared until we received the 2025 dashboard this spring English learner progress is the second indicator Proficiency in the English language is a first step for students to do well in other subject areas so such as reading and writing and science and social studies and so on the English learner progress
064measure looks at the progress that English learner students are making towards gaining this English proficiency each spring English learner students take the English language profession proficiency assessment for California or we call call that the lpac for short and then results from the lpac are used to calculate the English learner progress measure the next indicator is graduation rate regardless of whether students go on to college or not a high school diploma is the minimum requirement for most entry-level jobs in today's economy so the graduation rate measure um shows the number of students who receive a diploma by the end of 12th grade the next indic Ator is suspension rate the suspension rate measure shows the percentage of students who were suspended for at least one full day during the school year students who are suspended from
065school miss out on important classroom instruction and so it's very important that they're present chronic absenteeism uh measure shows how many students were absent for 10% or more of the instructional days that they were enrolled in school so for example if a student was enrolled for um to attend 180 instructional days and then they're absent for 18 or more of those days then they're labeled chronically absent and then the final indicator is College and Career the College and Career Readiness um indicator measure uh measures how many students graduate from high school better prepared for college or a career it uses many different College and Career me measures such as completion of coursework work experience or exam results next slide so the dashboard displays Performance Based on two factors the current year data for the indicator
066and then the difference between the current year and the prior year data performance is represented with dials and colors the lowest performance is red and then you'll see that the highest performance level is blue there are 14 student groups that are represented on the dashboard and this is a slide that shows you those 14 groups the ltels are the long-term English Learners this is a new group that was added to the 2024 dashboard so a student is an ltel if they have not attained English language proficiency within 7 years of initial classific ation as an English [Music] learner okay now we're going to start to look at the actual data so what this report shows is how well students are meeting grade level standards on the English language arts assessment so what you see um
067on this slide so on the left you see a comparison of central unified students to students across the entire State of California so our students reached the orange performance level as did students across the state of California what's also shown on this slide so more towards the center there is how each subgroup of students performed on Ela I'd like to point out that our Asian and our white students scored in the yellow overall performance level and then there are Filipino students scored in the blue Which is higher than the district and the state based on this information and as a followup to what I shared during the special board work session that we held last August many of the things that we're doing to improve student academic performance in English language arts are continuing reading
068labs are robust and serve a diverse group of students Aaron English who leads our inclusion work um is working with school s sit staff during professional development to build their understanding and capacity with culturally affirming instructional practices we also have 14 two teachers and 18 administrators that are participating in the letters training on the components of the science of reading professional development is ongoing for curriculum and content literacy strategies we've also brought in an outside expert this year to work with our staff on how to effectively write across the curriculum this report shows how well students are meeting grade level standards on the math assessment just as with Ela what you see on this slide is a comparison of central unified and the state of California our students reached the yellow performance level which is
069better than the state the state's orange performance level what's also shown on this slide is how each subgroup of students performed on the math assessment many of the the supports and interventions that have been previously shared are still in place we are closely monitoring evidence of progress tied to the multi-year professional learning plan some of the highlights of this work include a continued focus on rigorous tasks professional learning and collaboration for all grade level teachers on math this includes our special education teachers um and there's also class utilization of the Casp interim interim assessments which are the iabs and the f I IBS that both of our principles spoke about and then efforts to identify and scale promising instructional practices across the district this slide shows the achievement gap between our white Asian Hispanic and
070African-American students we are still working to reach before covid academic performance levels only some students primarily 11th grade students completed the state Assessments in 2021 after we return from distance learning and so that's why that year is left out almost all student groups have regained or are very close to their preco levels in ela all students are also making steady growth in math and we anticipate them soon reaching their preco performance levels as well as I mentioned earlier science is the newest indicator added to the dashboard there are no performance colors for 2024 but we will have those to share with you after the 2025 assessments this spring um science will include um students in fifth 8th and 11th grades this slide shows the percentage of current English Learners making progress towards English language proficiency
071you'll see that Central unified El students scored in the same range of orange as the state overall in the middle of the screen you'll see the English learner progress indicator this is the lp report this provides information on the percent of el students who progressed a level on the lpac in 20123 just under 53% of el students maintained a level four which is the highest level or progressed at least one level in 2024 there was a slight de decline there to just under 50 1% of students maintained or progressed and so we're closely monitoring the slight decrease and then working towards increasing this year's LP level some of the highlights of the work to support elel students includes ongoing coaching and monitoring to ensure that students receive daily integrated and designated English language development the
072multilingual success Network collaborates to improve English learner academic outcomes our eel super supervisor and support coach are also working to scale promising practices across the district to all sites that serve our elel students our district goal is that we will reach 92% graduation rate by June of 2025 this report shows the percent of students who received a high school diploma within four or five years of entering 9th grade or completed their graduation requirement ments at an alternative school we are happy with the progress is seen in this report our graduation rate is in the green performance level whereas the state stayed in yellow for 2024 we still have work to do to maintain this level and increase our graduation rate even more some of the highlights of the work to support students and ensure they
073graduate includes winter School for students to recover credits one on one meetings to discuss graduation data and develop support plans for students that are credit deficient staff monitoring student progress improved systems for early identification um and intervention to reduce dnfs and then streamline communication amongst all secondary sites to ensure Clarity and Alignment this uh slide here is our College and Career indicator slide it it provides a view into how well High School prepared students for success in college or a career based on measures like graduation rate um performance on state tests and college credits uh courses Central unified students share the same performance level of yellow with the state in order to improve our College and Career indicator dual enrollment offerings are provided at all Comprehensive High Schools extensive work is underway to build the
074capacity of all secondary academic counselors to support and monitor students in meeting those CCI indicators fcss is assisting in an audit of our courses to ensure that we are maximizing our CCI potential and new this year we are adding the incentive of earning a cord and special recogn recognition during graduation for students to attain College and Career Readiness status chronic absenteeism this report reflects the percentage of students who are absent 10% or more of the instructional days of the school year Central unified shares the same yellow performance level as the state to reduce chronic absenteeism sites review and discuss their attendance data weekly to identify students in need of intervention and support intervention Specialists conduct home visits to communicate with families about the importance of attendance and offer support and resources and then as you've
075heard tonight our school sites all have many things in place as well that they're doing to improve their attendance rates this report reflects the number of students who have been suspended at least once during the school year Central unified shares the same green performance level as the state in general we're pleased with the progress that our district is making concerning the decrease in suspension rate while also using this information to continue to identify Improvement opportunities many of these items have been shared with you previously but I want to highlight the use of structured day interventions at the secondary level to help reduce suspension rates this is being used in place of out of school suspensions for students that have firsttime offenses students receive instruction ction from a credential teacher along with support services including special
076education or eel if it applies and social emotional support as well while in structured day intervention students also participate in restorative um intervention practices so what's next so coming this semester we will continue with the area and site Capstone work in the area Capstone principles are working together as an area on a comprehensive project to address a problem of practice that is impacting their school sites that's what um principal marashian was just referring to with the area work the site Capstone is more individualized and involves principles identifying And discussing what's next at their sites what adaptations are needed this semester and then those next steps so they're constantly in a continuous practice of improvement we have student achievement student life and Wellness subcommittees being scheduled where we can further discuss indicator progress this spring we'll
077also be connecting with you um to gather your input as we develop the new lcap this year and school visits and support continues throughout the semester by District support staff area administrators and superint superintendent Davis and myself and tonight this this item is for information but I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you Dr brri questions comments from the boards that's truste Chavez uh thank you for this report um so there's a couple questions that I just need some clarification on um so on uh it looks like um page 15 uh the central unified graduation rate um so I'm concerned about the groups that have no performance color or specifically young people coming from foster care right so that's a great that's a great question there's actually two so so that
078one and then it also goes I see the same Trend with College and Career um it looks like the same groups have no performance color and specifically Foster youth right so in order for a student group to be on the dashboard to actually show up here they need to have 30 students and so those groups did not have 30 students and that's why they weren't represented on the dashboard we do have data for those students they're just not on the California dashboard okay I guess I'm just a little confused I I would imagine that Central unified would have more than 30 Foster youth it's a large District it is a large District so depending on the indicators so for ELA and math they did they were there so we had 88 students uh Foster students
079participate in the ELA assessment and 89 for math however there were only 33 that were counted towards col College and Career okay so I can I can definitely follow up and get more on that for you you like it's it's it's it's deeply concerning um and in addition I think I just want to understand a little bit better um I saw the interventions but specifically with those groups that don't have performance color um I just need a little bit more explanation as to why they weren't included specifically the numbers and what were some of the interventions that were used to actually identify those people because they could be misidentified or being unidentified or being overlooked as groups right so I know our child welfare and attendance led by our director Maisy young um Works directly
080with those families um of our Foster and homeless students and so um I know that there's a great deal of information there's a great deal of supports in place for those students to ensure that their progress is being monitored or lack thereof and that supports are in place to ensure that they're successful okay appreciate it thank you you're welcome trusty Korea thank you so one of my questions um is can you remind us how this identification is done so if this is self-identification by the students or the families as far as the the categories um that they fall into um or if we're doing this designation me they're demographic yes so it's in our student information system I mean this information is collected when they register um as their status changes throughout the year that's
081tracked as well so for our El students for example they're identified very early as soon as they arrive they parti they take a home language survey if they've marked a language that's other than English then we go through the process to um assess them and then identify whether or not they are an English learner for example um Foster and homeless students come in um we're notified through Social Services um there's there's a process where those students are identified as well um and then as far as our our specific groups like our Hispanic our Filipino that's all identified through the registration process and um that information is held in our student information system and so when an assessment is taken all of that information is is attached to that child so thank you for providing us
082the information about the additional supports and in interventions and what we're doing um to address um kind of low performance um specifically how if at all our schools or District as a whole using the specific information about the racial subgroups um or the classification as an English learner or Foster youth um to address the gaps that exist um and then I have another question right so our school sites are very aware of who their student groups are um the multilingual success network does extensive work for our El students um also our migrant students which is not a group that's captured on the dashboard um there are supports in place we have our instructional coaches um that are in place and and assisting and supporting sites um we have our Liaisons we have our counselors we
083have a team of people that are involved in providing those supports to students um our principles um the PLC work is very very strong at school sites um our teachers are aware of who these students are in their classroom they're having regular discussions about what the needs of these students are tracking their progress or lack of progress um our principles also come together in the Capstone work especially this year is something newer that we've added um to talk about student groups and where the needs lie and to also discuss what's working you know and share those best practices of support and intervention and we also have our reading Labs we have math work we have all of those pieces uhuh and so then but are reading labs are they focused in identifying the students based
084on the subgroup or their overall performance overall performance because my concern is now that I've sat on the board for six years and and there's specifically looking at the achievement Gap results um the racial and demographic breakdown you know there's one thing we compare ourselves to the stat areas we're doing much better um but just looking at our own personal numbers and the lack of growth or in some situations the decrease one of the things that continues to be concerning and I don't I don't necessar and maybe the work is being done so perhaps um there can be a better job about articulating and sharing with us what we're doing specifically but our African-American students for example continue to have the largest um achievement Gap and that's something I know I've read the research I've
085heard it for the the six years I've been on the board that's happening across the state across the us but it's unacceptable um so it would I would like to hear more about how we're specifically targeting these students that we know are our lowest performing to provide additional supports or you know some of the things that we're hearing the the empathy um interviews that are being done or survey to figure out where is the gap where do we need to support them because I think if we did that we would have significant growth and and I just point out to the African-American students but we see that across the board and a lot of our other subgroups um so I just want to make sure that we're effectively using this information to provide those targeted
086supports yes it's great to have them available for all of our students but if we're not being more proactive that's not I don't think that's doing anything to for us um can I oh go ahead especially because I think about uh we we conducted the tntp we know that there's a need to really change the the frame of thought by some of our teachers in certain campuses and so just making sure that we we receive that information again I don't think that I I've heard anything um that we've done differently to better improve and address uh that information that that we have if I can just add one thing as well so we are in year two of really really focusing on those culturally affirming practices and last year when Aaron English um joined our
087our staff as a director in that of inclusion in that area um we worked extensively with our administrators and this year she's going out to school sites and working with groups of teachers and she's also meeting with groups of students from those specific subgroups to talk to them about what do you need like you know what are we missing to really really have deep discussions with them to help us identify what we're maybe missing because I think we have a lot of things in place to your point um but but something is still not clicking for all of those students and so she's really gone out I have her schedule she's out on a weekly basis I'm having those conversations with staff and students okay are we doing anything um and that was a new
088position so I'm glad that the board approved that and that we've been working towards that but that's also one person uh are we doing anything at our district level as far as any intense training uh addressing and and related to culturally affirming practices um addressing biases the inherent biases that may exist um just to better address and better support uh the rest of our administrators on site yeah and that was that was the work of of last year and that is continuing it is being woven into this year without added component of her actually going out to the school site to your point she is one person and so we uh continue to work with our administrators to build that culture of inclusion at school sites um so that all students do feel included and
089they do feel welcome and there was a lot of conversation about that tonight and and sharing with our two principles with the things that they're doing at their school sites to really move that into into to their classrooms I mean so it really permeates the School site and just becomes the way that they do things okay um if there's consensus from the board I would like to request at some point maybe before the end of this semester that we get a presentation about the Dei work um I think your position has been for a year now is that am I remembering correctly she's in the back nodding so I this is she is she's three semesters in okay okay so my recollection about a year and a half um just so that we know how
090that's going I know that I was a a big supporter of that position and so I just want to make sure that it's working if we need to further review that and consider additional supports then that's something that this board has the authority to allocate additional funding and make those decisions thank you on a presentation in the future before the end of the semester was a request yes yes thank you any other questions yeah trusty Chavez just one last comment just for the record moving forward I recognize or I should ask this question the dashboard must come from California Department of Education correct okay um so just moving forward for us as a district I want to make sure that we are using the correct terminology I don't like the term homeless it's not okay
091for us to say that any longer we say unhoused or people experiencing homelessness so although the dashboard may say that moving forward we need to incorporate that language so we can start to shift that it's deeply offensive to people who are in the UNH housee community so I just need to make sure people make note thank you with that we turn to our superintendent and board Communications thank you um happy New Year welcome back uh a lot of activity over the break uh thank you to our expanded learning team uh we had quite few students that were in school last week and so we had 725 students that we did serve um 585 credits earned by our high school students that were needing to work on their credits towards graduation and about 80% of the
092students stayed the entire time sometimes we have them get started and then you know they just they want to keep vacation going but we had a pretty good um turnout and I think the 25 camps that were offera in the afternoon after the literacy work was was a big draw so thank you for our team for that our daily attendance when I look at it at the semester point in time we are up uh 1.6% over the last 2 years and our chronic absenteeism overall is down 8% we did midyear uh learning data our area administrators our principles uh Dr Boatright uh all all convened in December and we got to hear from our principles in depth what changes were going to be made mid year uh we have 61 days as Dr butri reminded
093all of our teams 61 days till our students take their spring assessment ments and so all 61 of those days are really important that they be at school and that the decisions being made in instruction are meaningful for the students and what they need so they have what's called pencil plans I heard that mentioned by principal slack uh which is essentially pencil because if the students didn't learn it they might need to make an adjustment and go back to to work on it but that they really think about what do students need to know by the end of this grade level so that they're ready for the next grade level PLC work um got some incredible examples of it around the district where teachers are really learning from one another and really humbly saying I
094I got a group of kids that aren't figuring this out how can I um do this and what did you do that worked um I'm going to go give that a try or can you do that with my students and and I'll watch and so really proud of of seeing those experiences throughout our district you've heard mentioned a couple of times letters training there was another training this weekend our area administrator Christine Pennington every time there's a weekend training we get to hear all about all the details of it on Monday and I think vocabulary and comp comprehension was really big this weekend but I do want to point out that we've recognized that the data isn't moving as fast as we think is appropriate for our students in early literacy for us to see
095any of this data on dashboard or any of this data at end of your assessments that foundation's critical and so um Dr Boatright and team have um brought in some other supplemental programs and that's what you're hearing is being tested and tried out right now and we're seeing that in classrooms and hearing really good feedback on that and the letters training accompanies that we have teachers that are over a two-year period of time investing a lot in learning um science of reading how they learned to teach reading in their uh credentialing program and what really is needed for students and specifically for students that learn differently and in different subgroups and and different uh barriers that are in the way so some great work going on with that uh we'll be bringing some data around
096that uh very very soon and then lastly this month is board recognition month and so I would like to recognize each of you for the work that you do in service of 16,000 students and appreciate um the support and the push um in all that gets done when we're here at the table and as well as when we're away from it so um thank you for your service thank you any any um Communications from any of the board members at this time thank you next we turn to comments from the public and this is an opportunity for for uh people wishing to address the governing board on any items not on the agenda this is the time to do so uh 20 minutes is uh set aside for person wishing to address the board with
097a maximum of 3 minutes per person uh allowable no portion of the speaker time may be uh given to another speaker if you wish to address the board please call area code 559 276 3150 if you wish to address the board on an agenda item please do so when that item is called items requiring lengthy discussion May at the board's discretion be scheduled as a specific agenda item at Future meetings speakers are requested to State their name and to address comments to the Board of Trustees the board is governed by the brown act and may briefly respond to public comments but take no action except on items scheduled on the agenda and with that do we have any uh um uh clerk kuron do we have any uh uh comments from the public at this
098time president Singh I received no comments at this time and do we have any from any of our online viewers or those that may be calling in we have no callers at this time has the time a lot uh a lot thank you yeah 30 seconds and pass next we move on to the consent agenda and I'm going to suggest uh pulling item m6 and M7 from the consent agenda that was m6 and M7 are being pulled yes okay and before we uh uh vote on the consent agenda I do want to highlight uh for our community uh item number two which will be declaring January 28th through February 12th as 20125 is Lunar New Year uh often celebrated by many cultures but especially our Southeast Asian and East Asian communities we will be adopting
099a resolution declaring February 2025 as Black History Month as well as uh declaring January 27th 2025 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and with that I'll accept any motions to approve the consent agenda with the exceptions of item m6 and M7 which we'll be discussing I move to approve items 1 through five and 8 through 10 and on our consent agenda I have a motion by trusty CIO I have a second by trustee sers those in favor please say I I I those opposed nay those abstaining motion carries 70 we move to our first item item M oh so we move to item uh M6 uh approve new secondary courses assistant superintendent Dr bite uh okay thank thank you for the clarification so uh I'll I will uh give trusty um uh Kirk an opportunity if
100uh to ask any further questions or clarification with regards to uh these new secondary courses thank you very much president sing Oh that's loud so good after or good evening thank you I had just a few questions uh about the development and implementation of the ethnic studies courses that we're going to be offering at Central unified I do want to start by saying that um the implementation and development and implementation and delivery of ethnic studies in central UniFi School dist District you will not find a bigger Advocate than me uh this is very important to me this is a promise that I made to my community that I would keep a Vigilant eye on this process uh so I have just a few questions uh clarification questions and just a little bit of time to
101expand how we understand the implementation of uh ethnic studies in the central Unified School District so my first question is um could you explain a little bit about the reasoning for uh offering this at the ninth grade level as opposed to an upper division 11th or 12th grade class yes so I'm going to go ahead and get started this is our uh oh there she is Aon English she's our director of diversity equity and inclusion and she's been working closely on the development of the ethnic studies course and so we're going to sort of tag team on this one so this is a semester long course and the way that we are um planning to schedule it right now um is we have have our health course which is a state requirement which is a
102semester long course and then since this one is also a semester long course generally this occurs in nth grade and so that's why they're being scheduled that way the plan is to schedule them that way in the master schedule and then also um there's been some discussion about um you know potentially offering this as a 10th or 11th grade course and what we run into is the course um the schedule itself for students so we have students that are completing their um CTE Pathways for example and so if we move this course up into their 10th or 11th grade year it sort of impacts their schedule um in a way that they may not be able to complete their pathway so that it's just a consideration um for us so we could certainly you know
103entertain that discussion further but that's that's the thinking so far I know that some of the reasoning with the development of uh this assembly bill was the recommendation or just kind of an idea to pay to place this as a nth grade single semester class however there is space to expand it to a full year class uh and to offer it so and just um because this is an area I'm very familiar with and thinking about the social emotional space that our ninth graders are in coming out of 8th grade coming out of Junior High uh and starting with what are really complex and difficult issue or topics if there's been no prior exposure to them so just and thinking of the consideration about the information that we are trying to share with our students
104and their ability to grasp these Concepts in a way that they will carry it forward for the rest of their High School journey and then into our community as Citizens um okay that was one question my second question is is this I looked over uh the curriculum that was shared with us is this based on the California the State Board model curriculum good evening board members and thank you so much for letting me come up here and address some of the questions you may have and yes it is so um if I can just give you a brief overview of where the teachers have been in this journey and I've only come into it Midway but I did deep Vibe um in this and so when they first were excuse me working with this curriculum
105we did get information from all the teachers who were possibly interested in teaching this course from the three comprehensive high schools from Central East Central High School and Justin Garza to review the guidelines and the model curriculum and that was um our former assistant director Paul barell who spearheaded that work initially in that they did review those guidelines that were set forth by the state and then um one of those as you might mentioned being on the audience being sensitive subject matter to um what was going on and so based on those guidelines they also looked at the four core areas that the state recommended and then um pulled a lot of different curriculum samples from different districts across the state and so in that work which was definitely comb through very meticulously looking at
106that um curriculum as well as contemplating the nature of our demographics in our district they were able to see some of the curriculum that was closely aligned and then kind of Redline things that would not be applicable for our students here but then Implement those that would be applicable in relation to um some of the population that we have in our school district so everything is from the model curriculum from the state and nothing um is something that is a Miss for clarification for the board and for the audience could you tell us what the four core areas are absolutely yes we um are looking at the population from Africa Asia Latin America as well as the indigenous populations and then from that we also looked at our um demographic to see where we would
107want to um support students as they're learning about these cultures thank you that leads to my next question as I look through the State Board recommendation report about ethnic studies and the role that the board has in implementing this um does our district have a definition of ethnic studies I believe the definition did come from the work of culture in that sense and so they use that from the excuse me my notes here that it did come from their previous study and so the teachers have used that but I don't know if I there's a formalized definition in any board policy okay I will I will I will continue to look at that I believe for clar for for as we look at ethnic studies ethnic studies really is defined as those four areas ethnic
108studies is an umbrella term that means African amican studies CH Latino studies Asian-American studies and Native American studies so just really specific because it does get easy to expand what is ethnic studies specifically as a field into cultural studies and this is not a cultural studies class this is an ethnic studies class that really focuses on those four specific areas um I just have a few more is your knee shaking don't be nervous I got my hair done so I'm great uh is has there been any research done on locations that are on indigenous lands and those histories and will that be included uh in the curriculum for example um at Fresno City College our college is located on yokuts land and as part of many of the things that we do we do a
109land recognition so has that been done for any of the school site locations in our area in our district uh to talk about our local indigenous populations I know that in the scope and sequence said they are talking about indigenous that are to Fresno California but I'm not sure if there was anything specific as to each School site so I can look into that and see how that it's a fascinating it is I mean I've never heard I've never heard of it that specific but that's something that I will see if they've considered fantastic just a couple more yes if I can ask Jance on the topic so are you talking about incorporating the land recognitions as part of this uh class or are you talking about more broadly because most community colleges across the
110state do as part of their board uh meetings to incorporate the recognition but I'm I'm just curious if what I didn't want to jump ahead too far in that and probably just an evaluation of of where our sites sit on indigenous lands just an evaluation of that it sounds like would be a good first step and growing into that type of recognition Okay thank you further questions on on this topic uh trusty Kirk I do have two more please okay uh what was the criteria used to select the faculty who will be teaching the classes at each of the high schools I don't believe that there is exactly a master schedule set for who is teaching I believe that the student or excuse me the staff that came together were those who were interested in
111having um more dialogue so the master schedule to my knowledge hasn't been set based on the numbers and the sections offered so um I know that they're working with the side administrators and Department chairs to figure out who is teaching that course so there is no criteria set yet well they have to they would be credential to teach that course yes yes credential yes but experience within this field as it as it states in the in the state board report there's a recommendation that there is um yes first and interest facult who are interested instructors who are interested and will grow on the professional development to be able to deliver this course material but as a district do we have anything that says this is uh some of the experience that we would look for
112we do not but but they would be fully credential to teach this course what is the credential for teaching ethnic studies we we are um using the history social science credential I know that that is not the same thing it is okay you're using history and social science yes yes we we're recommending for that for that um a through G requirement okay okay and then my final question as I was looking um and this is my first time looking at these type of of curriculum for the K12 system so it said there's a request for $2,000 is that to include could you tell me a little bit about what that is for right now that's just for any kind of duplication materials that staff might need it was just a general number because as you
113might know there is no approved textbook from the state that has said here's an ethnic studies textbook so staff is using that to supplement their resources as they're using those primary source documents that students will need to have access to so this isn't for professional development or support for the instructors who will be going in to teach these classes we have that in other separate okay thank you thank you um and then I'm sorry just one more has there been any student feedback on the curriculum or any Community feedback on the curriculum requested or I believe there's some student feedback from Central High School um Trish a is a teacher there who has gained some feedback from students I have to look into the other sites and see where they were as far as the
114presentation and as Community feedback that has not been given to me at this time okay thank you that concludes my questions thank you trusty Kirk trusty Kon and then trusty Chavez uh thank you president Singh I have a few more questions too um the first uh my first question while it to pigb off of trusty Kirk's last question have we solicited Community feedback um yet on the uh curriculum I am not done it myself I have to look back in the archives and see if um the group has done that before thank you and then do we currently have a yearlong social studies course for nth grade or is it still half Health half it is still half it's one semester um do you think that we would benefit students students would benefit from a
115uh year-long social studies course you know I'm not in the POS I've not been in that role in a long time so I cannot honestly say whether or not they do that I know that with the cultural affing practices that teachers are receiving that I know that's not necessarily the scope of that class that they have a benefit but I'm not that person to probably give input on that thank you and then have you been the uh primary um creator of this you know um of ethnic studies uh course for Cent unified I have not the teachers are doing that okay all right well um I wanted well why I do want to give kudos to you and our other social studies teachers because um earlier I got to see a uh an a sample
116of the curriculum I don't think it's completed yet but um from what I'm seeing so far it looks pretty good um it has you know focus on you know Fresno and you know indigenous histories here but also you know African-Americans um uh Cho um Southwest Asian so I think that's all great um I do and I really like where we're going with this I do want to just share my hope that you know when we're talking about these issues in the classroom we understand that there has been a very large Rising racism in recent years toward African-Americans in our community to uh Latino Americans um against you know our Jewish neighbors and of course our our Arab neighbors as well so making if what uh are we training are we providing teachers to facilitate what
117could be very difficult discussions that could you know cause hurt you know teenagers can sometimes end up being you know it's when they're growing they're developing their cultural beliefs and in ninth grade they can develop one way they can develop you know a not so positive way so what training are we giving to facilitate sensitive discussions I believe that we'll be working with our social emotional support staff as well um when to talking about these sensitive issues and then the teachers themselves are also going through that culturally relevant pedagogy to help students navigate those conversations okay thank you and then I just also want to share my hope that when we you know finalize this curriculum that it does uh me mention Palestinian folks in our community because um when I was going over each
118of the um sections they were kind of glossed over you know and want to have a focus on that as well as you know um genocide discussions thank you thank you for the questions trusty shavez I will make mine brief so I wanted to Circle back to something that trusty Kirk mentioned about um what we would call it in the community college World prequels pre-qualifications so in addition to um um I would imagine faculty members who are interested in teaching the courses I a social scientist and I would really caution you when you are selecting those instructors that they really do have expertise in those areas that they are going to be teaching because it's a very large umbrella um my discipline is a very large umbrella so we have to be very cautious in
119addition just to kind of pick you back on something that trusty CUO mentioned earlier one of the things that we were talking about with some of these and I don't like using those terminology but the performing groups um when we're talking about those academic metrics uh some of the ways that we can engage some of those students who might be disengaged and who might be exhibiting some of those low performing numbers in our classrooms is through ethnic studies and that's where we find them really shine and really engage and and turn the corner to get more interested and engaged in their education so I would just encourage you to kind of make those connections as you're developing the curriculum really targeting those students to participate in those classes absolutely thank you so much be before
120we take a a vote on this particular item I just wanted to Circle back to trusty Kirk were there any specific uh requests or recommendations that that you wanted to make specific to this item present anyways yes I would sorry I'm trying to I had them all had to get them all in my head real quick so one request is that the district does look into a districtwide definition of what ethnic studies is specifically and what we're delivering to our students I would really like to have the opportunity to hear or read some of the student feedback about the curriculum and with the hopes that we are going out to our community as well um for feedback because parents are going to have questions about what their kids are bringing home um and then any
121further professional development I think that as we are continuing to grow and finalize this curriculum that we can look at it um at that point trusty Cel can you explain um where we go from this item so if the board approves this uh the curriculum is still in the process of being developed am I understanding this correctly yes it is MH and so then is there still an opportunity so so maybe just walk us through like what happens next after this occurs here and and then one thing that I just wanted to throw at trusty Kirk is um I'm not aware that we have a definition in any of our board board policies or administrative regulations but it's probably been three years since I've looked at all of them um so if that's something that
122you want to recommend and there's consensus amongst the board and I see heads nodding and I would also agree and provide direction that you guys consider looking at one if there's any specific board policies or what we can do at the board level to adopt a definition um that would be great and I think we all support that it seems like so the curriculum we need to finish developing the curriculum um check with the group that's in development to see what student feedback has been received um also consider how to engage the community in this process um and then we um start registering students um in less than two weeks weeks so students will start registering for this course um we'll need to work on the Staffing side um to make sure that we do
123have the the best um teachers in front of our students to teach these um to teach this course and then go through the actual scheduling process on the master schedule and school starts in the fall okay and we'll be launching this course now I just wanted to say as well that $2,000 that's on um the document that's come forward to you that's that's Baseline starting I mean if something is needed um if we need to purchase novels if we need to you know buy additional materials professional development there is money to do all of those things as needed this is new for us we're building this as we go it's not a curriculum that we can just purchase from a vendor and and bring it in um but there's there there's adequate you know funding
124for all of those different components a couple of questions sorry um so as part of our process and just for historical knowledge so that I understand because I think this is the first time that we have what I would consider an expert so thank you trusty Kirk for um your feedback it's it's really I appreciate it greatly as as a trustee um do we typically solicit uh Community input when we're building curriculum like this you know I I can't think of a time where we've built a course like this I that going to be my next question was the last time we actually built that because I think this is one um and perhaps the other one will be an easier but then we have finance and and it's no way similar uh in in
125in subject matters but just as a comparison of we have other curriculums and other courses that we're going to be mandated to provide yes and so just kind of thinking about how we establish a new process and if that's something I didn't hear any objections but if that's something that needs to come back to us as a board making sure that we're building in that time to to provide that feedback to give you all enough time to then create that curriculum and and be prepared um to post uh the classes for students and and things of that nature thanks if I can act uh tie into it as well we have an instructional adoption process the other part of this that's unique not only are we building it but the state has not released to
126ours California a a selected list of materials that we can select from in that policy and in that process there is both time for Community to review and give feedback and also students too and so I believe that what you're approving tonight is the course so we can submit and get it on the books and and there's still an entire spring semester so there's no reason why given given this conversation that while it is locally gathered I say locally because it's the teachers have also pulled from other places around the state who are maybe a year ahead of us um there is a supplement curriculum that's being used it can follow the same process it it just is typically triggered by there is a set of textbooks they're going to go through that process this
127one is we need to do it and and make sure you figure out how to do it it's a little different expectation of the states but we're going to still um have what three months that uh some of this can be done so perhaps we can have an item come back as information or action as as appropriate because I think this is the first time in in the last six years at least since I've been on the board in deep since we're the longest serving board members now on this board uh I don't think we've ever had any we've ever built any curriculum like we've approved textbooks um and other courses so that's a new process for us all um and again thank you so much for your comments and for for providing that feedback
128and pulling this item thanks I saw truste kontan and then trusty Kirks uh thank you pres Singh um I just want to very briefly um Dr R uh to your last comment um I appreciate that we're not just buying a curriculum and going along with it um because the textbooks written in Texas may not work for us in central um a generic ethnic studies course uh would not pro may not acknowledge the Mong Community the seik community uh yit's tribes um from what I've seen from director english's um sample curriculum we're planning on including those communities as well as others so I appreciate the focus on creating a unique local uh minded um ethnic studies course that is also going to give college credit so that enriches us and also prepares kids for the future
129um other than that I have questions for our other two courses so I'll defer to others if they have questions on ethnic studies thank you truste Kirk sure just one clarifying context for for everyone who's present um ethnic studies as a as a area of academic uh study exists because students insist that it was important to be a part of their academics in the late 1960s it was students at the uhal California State University at San Francisco that insisted that this their institution implement this type of program so feedback from students and feedback from the community is why these courses exist in the first place and so it may not be common for different courses to come through for this type of community feedback this course or this area in particular has a history that
130is root first in students and in the their surrounding communities thank you uh trusty Kon you had a additional comments or questions uh yes thank you president sing so for the personal finance um uh thank you for time Dr English um I am excited that we are offering this as a math course you know I think with the California requirement that we include this um I think central unified is really uh taking this in a unique way um rather than putting social studies we're putting this in math because it's going to allow us to really focus on things like how to balance a checkbook how to do your taxes um those things that people in the community have told us on and on again you know but what we want to see in schools so
131I'm excited for that I am interested in what do we expect um a normal uh high school students um uh pathway Through Math over four years um because we also have this transition to quantitative reasoning so um Dr bght if you can go over what what we expect students to take you know in which in which year and um can you explain what trans the tqr class will um provide for students I'm looking for my math expert he's not here tonight so I I off the top of my head cannot tell you what that exactly what that looks like so but the personal finance though um this would be a fourth year math option um for our students to take um it offers them something um you know to continue um on that pathway um
132it's a rigorous option um it meets the requirements of ab 2927 which will be a required Math course in 2027 um up until that time though this provides a fourth-year math option um for our students um it fulfills the C mathematics requirement for um a through G course completion so it's a college preparatory Math course okay thank you so if in 3 years the personal finance is going to be requirement then um but right now it's not so would we then in three years move it down from senior Math to Junior sophomore I I mean I I'm not going to rule that out I can't see a sophomore student taking that course not with that level of rigor but it would certainly I mean right now we're looking at as as a math option for
13311th and 12th grade students and right now students are required to take math 1 2 and three in order to graduate yes so if a student hasn't completed those three by junior year how would they then take personal finances requirement uh I it's it's a forward thinking question I know but I just want us to have this intentionality you know as we prepare for these mandates California gives us right um because right now I think it's in a great spot I'm just worried how we're going to adjust to this requirement and how we're going to be able to make sure students graduate with this required course if it's a senior level Math course well so junior or senior level Math course right and so right now we're looking at offering this as a year-long course
134um the state has not given specific Direction yet on whether or not the requirement will be a semester or a year-long course so there's still some things that are not complete um you know have been shared out with districts yet or decisions that have been decided but we've decided to sort of jump in um and get this course started we'll go through the um we have what's called a PCC to select the curriculum this semester um but instead of waiting we want to offer this to our students well uh while we wait for clarification from Sacramento thank you for the Forward Thinking uh for math thank you superintendent Davis if I can add our students our junior year take an assessment that covers standards from ma math one 123 and until they brought this up
135for students who want four years of math for their college application or because they're interested in it and it's the elective they want their only choices were trig AP stats AP Cal AB um and not all students are driven by that type of mathematics and so putting in these two courses gives that option for the student that wants the fourth year and it's uh probably more universally applicable than AP Calculus thank you so we've gotten um additional clarification additional requests for for our Administration to provide do I have a motion on this particular item I move to approve uh the new secondary courses a second we have a motion by trusty CUO a second by trusty Kirk those in favor please say I I I those opposed nay those abstaining thank you motion carries 70
136we move on to uh item N7 approved project stealth mentoring contract uh trusty Kirk um any additional clarification questions or any questions you have on this item I did have a couple of questions about this program who will I be addressing them to good evening good after or good even I keep saying after good evening to you uh so in looking over this um to serve our students at Persian High School there just were not a lot of details in what we were looking at what we're being asked to vote on for the price of this mentoring program so have the students who this mentoring program can serve have those students been identified so the staff on hand will be to support any student on the campus who is identified uh as uh students who
137would benefit from that support um so the staff does uh know the students on their site that uh do um would benefit from additional support um so yes I couldn't tell you specifically that they've got you know names but they do know the needs of their students and this would provide the support for those students who are identified who would benefit from it so we mean staff is that that's different from the mentors who will be coming in with this program yes so uh site Administration um the counseling staff that is on site intervention uh counselors that are on site uh are already a school psychologist are already providing support to students in need this would actually add additional staff that had previously been on Persian campus um and f that need that um has
138arisen this year due to that support staff not being present any longer but they are coming in as mentors not um employees of the district correct okay um have those mentors has been identified um I believe that they have yes mentors are ready to go okay and so I guess what were the without a target number of students that you're looking to serve at the 95 students that are attending Persian high school and not an idea we're trying to get these 15 or these 20 is this a self- selecting voluntary program um it can be if a student uh demonstrates that they have needs that would benefit from this support um what we were looking to do and what was unique about this opportunity is we were able to build the support network so to
139speak that was being provided at the school site so these teams of mentors the mentors that will be assigned to Persian um will participate it will be assigned to Persian for the school day we'll be able to support students throughout the school day but there's also family components there's family events there's a more comprehensive program so that we're taking the support for the student but also realizing that sometimes there's a greater umbrella that we need need to we need to cover with that support and address and so the uniqueness of this option is it provides some of that as well and so looking at the buildup what it takes to get this program up and started and I do see that the contract runs from January to June so what is the sustainability of this
140after June does this then become a year-long um mentoring program and what is the transition from a six-month program to then a year-long program and so without and then so some of the I think my next question will be about the goals but first is about the sustainability but Beyond 6 months um so the goals would be to be able to say that the U support uh the mentorships uh the pieces that uh um were provided uh in terms of encompassing the family aspects of it were successful uh determined by obviously you know different metrics of how students are performing right yes I think that was my question about what what are the quantifiable uh measurements what can we measure over a six-month period what are we looking at uh what is is there a
141Target increase absenteeism or just to pick one that we're going to drop it by this much percent are so are any of those goals have they been um fleshed out yet not a specific metric of saying 5% would be our our Target I think when we're looking at specific student needs that could uh give us quantify what what success looks like differently so it could be a student who um is um dealing with depression and so maybe absenteeism is is an issue and we can connect the student with a mentor maybe it's a different Behavior behavior and we want to see a decrease in that behavior So within the specific supports and the goals of aligning them with the mentor and that support um it could be if it's a family Dynamic you know what
142are we looking to see in terms of that support and that communication with the family and relationship to the student and how we're working to support the student we want to Pilot it for the six months uh to start to get some of that data whether some of it is quantitative some of it could be anecdotal um definitely student feedback uh empathy interviews uh persine uh is very very very their staff good at those types of uh um gathering information and really getting feedback from their families and their students so I think when we pull that together we'll be able to have enough data to say hey this is something we want to continue doing for a full year going into 25 26 okay so thank you for that um I still do question though
143if we do not have targets and objectives outlined for us to achieve what is the accountability if those measurements are not fleshed out and not achieved with the continuation of this program after the six-month period well and I think I agree that we would want to be able to say that we have data both types that would demonstrate that this was an impactful program for our students and their families um because it is a mentorship program that is going to be addressing a variety of student needs um I think individual data would pertain to what that Target was for that student or that situation again if it's absenteeism then we would be looking at students absenteeism if it's behavior that led to suspensions a reduction in suspensions for that student um if it's uh again
144uh behaviors uh addictions if we can say through the data that those things have decreased in regularity but I think the specificness of the individual student support would lend itself more to specific goals that are set up within that relationship and that mentorship as opposed to an overall we want to see chronic absenteeism down by a certain percentage because some of those students might not have a issue with absenteeism okay just to reiterate this is a self- selected or voluntary program not a required program it's not a required program but staff definitely would can recommend and reach out to parents and definitely it could be staff identified as well or based off of student acknowledging that they have a need that staff says hey this would be a great opportunity to provide that mentorship to
145address that and I know it does have the family component to it also so in looking over this if we do not have many students who select to participate in this mentoring program or families who are not able to participate in the family events then we do have these two mentors sitting on our campus every day maybe doing nothing um I since they're not District employees right so they're really limited within the scope of what they're providing in in the contract so if that is again to the accountability what is the accountability if we get to March and we have four weeks three weeks in March where the mentors are not doing anything but however we are still paying oops for them to be on the campus every day sure the portion of the contract
146fee does go to those events that you uh reference the family events and things of that nature it's up to that amount for those so clearly if those if we don't utilize that portion of the contract in its full amount then that wouldn't be utilized it's up to that amount um in terms of the need this would be replacing a mentorship program that currently existed that was highly used um and is noticeably missing from the campus and so there is a high student need for this support so I would uh feel very confident in saying the two mentors will um have a number of students to support will be busy providing that support that will benefit our kids through the duration of this uh six-month contract may I ask what happened to the previous mentoring
147program um it was not uh available for us to utilize moving forward okay that answers my questions thank you okay you're welcome trusty Chavez so I've got quite a few my friend um so one of my questions is about this funding source so um it looks like we're using us funding through site Equity multiplier funds correct I'm not familiar with that funding source so what is the purpose of that funding uh it is site based funding um it's calculated by the state uh by a number of factors I could not list the different factors that come to the uh dollar amount that is provided um it is provided in I want to say three-year pieces right so it's based on the number of students that have been continuously enrolled at that school site so really
148looks at those migrant populations which um is something that we see at our our our alternative school sites that's sort of the nature of that program um so we have um this is one of the sites that was awarded those funds um I don't have the amount with me um here tonight um but they're asking to use those funds for this purpose okay so that kind of leads me back to my question from before about our young people coming from foster care and our young people coming from the unhoused population those would be those migratory populations that I'm assuming came with the funding that would go to Persian school so the fact that we couldn't identify those people previously concerns me because typically this type of funding is attached to those types of high risk
149student populations that's one thing additionally I'm also wondering about the RFP process for this funding was there a competitive RFP process for this provider so we did uh look into other options uh in the fall uh we did have another uh company um that did give us some information um they did not uh to their own accounts specialize in as much secondary mentorship and support um and so um this was a company that did specialize uh not just in supporting a secondary students but definitely uh students who struggle in some areas and can benefit heavily from uh that type of mentorship and support plus the addition of the other company did not include the family component uh knowing that a lot of times that family support um is also a need for our students and
150so that was some of the determining factors to move forward and try this uh partnership for this time period okay um do we know the minimum qualifications for a mentor because I see here that they're going to providing counseling I have Mr markarian who's uh with stealth you can come on up my name is Vanessa Mar and I'm with the uh resno chapy police and fire chapy and our current staff they are our all social workers with their credentials and so the mentors will be working with them so when you say with them so we're saying lcsw's licensed clinical social workers mssw okay so MSW so they're not licensed so um they're not going to be clinically supervised these are Master Level counseling counselors yes okay um so these are the highest risk population and
151we're asking mentors to be supervised by people who aren't licensed concerning also um the mentors themselves what is their they're being supervised by the msws but what are the mentors professional qualifications I will have to defer to you I'm sorry I am just here as um a liaison because our other staff could not be here tonight and know I'm being customer this is I'm very protective of young people so you just have to understand that yeah okay so my job is to fundraise for the organization for the nonprofit I've been there I don't know how that goes okay so I know that you weren't prepared for these questions but I I will need to those answers to feel comfortable with this contract additionally I'm also siding with trusty Kirk one of the things that I'm
152concerned about um I've written these contracts you don't know this about me but this is my area of expertise and I'm coming from the counseling world so I see these invoices and contracts on a regular basis all the time I'm deeply concerned about the $110,000 a month it's very vague I need to know that if people are going to be invoicing for services are they providing services so we need to have a tieback with that invoice how many hours of services have been provided to our students in order for us to know that we're actually getting a return on our investment to truste Kirk's point I don't feel comfortable having mentors there full-time on the on the campus with a voluntary program we haven't identified participants it doesn't seem real clear who these participants are
153going to be and we're going to get this big monthly invoice all the way through June it's just not the way you can do business and it's not quantifiable it's nothing that we could trace back to even in audit it's concerning so we need to make sure that whenever we're looking at these kinds of contracts it's very concrete and there needs to be a measurable outcome so when we're talking about high-risk populations which again that terminology makes me uncomfortable but that's what we're saying here um we need to be looking at are we going to be decreasing suspensions are we going to be decreasing absenteeism are we going to be increasing student attendance I need to see those metrics or I don't understand the purpose of this contract quite frankly the purpose of the contract
154was to provide services that previously existed at persine that no longer exist no I I hear you I hear you say I'm just saying like for this particular contract for us to be able to Warrant going to an outside provider and Contracting through an independent contract another provider outside of our District staff I would need to see something more concrete as to what are the outcomes and what are we going to be looking at to measure the progress for our students okay any other questions at at this time uh trusty Chavis no so if I'm hearing uh and and if there is a sort sort of the if I can ask um M Garrett if we were to return this item with more clarification as uh trusty Kirk and trusty Chavez have have shared uh
155what what sort of impact would that be at least in terms of the current year at at persing and uh to get that additional information what sort of timeline would we be looking at sure no we can absolutely uh bring that ination back uh to the next board meeting um the impact of delaying to the 28th is uh staff was ready uh to if approved begin to um be allocated to persing and those students could begin making those contacts and receiving that support so there's a natural delay in that until approval of the contract um but we can definitely work to bring back um those requests try K so when did our previous contract because I think we were Contracting out for these Services uh sometime before so when did that previous contract contract end
156at June 30 of 24 the end of last school year with the previous company so we went all through fall of 2024 without providing these uh additional services or how were we filling the Gap staff was meeting the needs of the students uh with Central unified Personnel to the extent and the degree that they can and they're working very hard to continue to do that um the goal over last semester was to try to find a resource uh that could fulfill that vacancy and provide that additional support piece um and that was what we brought forth um but it did take us this semester to identify meet with the team gather our district team as I mentioned in December uh Maisy young director of our student services department Cassie Smith uh our supervisor of Campus
157culture and safety site administration myself sat down with the stealth team and really talked about what the needs of the school were that took time to put that together put together the contract that we've proposed um and move it forward okay um I mean I appreciate both of your guys's comments and your feedbacks it sounds like we should be able to put this together or or we have the data to identify the students that were receiving Services before that would potentially continue to be served um and then we can probably ask the vendor to provide a little more detail about what our expectations should be I know it's all going to require more work um from you all but if we have this return as action which I'm happy to entertain a motion to do
158so or if there's consensus we can provide Direction maybe a motion may be best um that we identify what are the objectives how are we going to measure the uh accomplishments of or the services that the effectiveness of this contract um what are the number of of students that we specifically expect to provide those Services um and then how we are going to make sure that we're getting the services that we expect for the monthly fee and the overall performance and probably add an additional component that that we receive a report back if this item is approved um at the next meeting to evaluate the success um or what the plan is well before the end of this academic semester so that the questions that are being asked by my colleagues are addressed beforehand yes
159we we can provide that information uh don't mind the work okay and it is important that uh as voting members of the board that you are comfortable with your vote and more so I wanted to confirm that there's no concern with getting any of that information like there's no not to not to my knowledge we can yeah no I think the the biggest I think the the one area would be we could look at the the capacity of students that we could serve with this mentorship I think as the population of uh persine is somewhat fluid we may have additional students that come during the course of the semester that would benefit and we would want to link them to that support as well as students who maybe um don't show a need now but
160a month later do so um I think we we could definitely uh speak to the capacity of of number of students not necessarily though we've identified these 15 students at this moment in time so I want to clarify if I can I didn't expect to have names tonight my question to you is how many total students I need to have you have a benchmark by the end of the year that you're going to hit I need to know how many students you're actually serving per month and I need to know exactly how the campus is going to be tracking that progress of those students so how is that going to tie back to some sort of measurable outcome that we can then see as a board because if we're not tracking our services then why
161are we why are we providing it right we will get that for you thank you trusty kog uh thank you president Singh uh administrator Garrett uh before I let you out of the hot SE I do want to ask clarifying question um because you said that staff has been meeting the needs of students this semester if we're currently meeting the needs why do we need another contract so thank you for allowing me to clarify they're doing their best to meet the needs to the the extent of the service that was provided um definitely they're not able to um the depth and and the amount of support that additional staff provide um so this does go back and fill that Gap that is still needed um they're doing their best to meet the needs but I
162do know that they still benefit from additional programming and mentorships available and if this doesn't get approved tonight I hope we can hear from uh principal young as as she's you know more involved with this that campus but can you describe what kind of case load we're seeing um with the staff currently like what what how are they overburdened are they at capacity below describe that um I think the staff works very hard to ensure that the students and the families um have the supports and resources they need um I think when you're looking at Staffing they're staffed appropriate based on Staffing metrics what we do know is sometimes needs of students can be extensive and go beyond what what Staffing metrics can say so I think they're doing a very good job of uh
163maintaining support um but if we can continue to provide additional resources to them that extend the work and extend them to become more involved even as they are into families then that's a benefit um but I in terms of in terms of Staffing metrics um they're staffed for the population they have but some of those needs can be extensive and that's where the additional mentorship ship come in having maybe someone different who's outside the circle as well sometime is helpful and students connect to that a little differently so from those aspects is why I would say they still need that support uh thank you for that um I think my last question is actually for U maybe superintendent Davis I cannot recall was was this item on our um information last meeting it was okay
164thank you um so and this is again an issue we have with our with our contracts they come kind of last minute at us so we don't have much time because if we don't approve it today um I feel like we could actually be harming those same students we were very concerned about that are falling behind in our dashboard presentation earlier because persing is not a general population school it is very unique and it is the students that go there tend to be our most vulnerable students the ones that are most likely to fall through the cracks um so while don't like the I how late this contract is coming in uh I would prefer have more time I worry that if we delay we're actually hurting our students um but the good news that
165this contract is only for this semester we're not there's no automatic extensions to it um so while we have we do have our new subcommittee for academic you know wellness and the student achievement so maybe while if this program is approved while it's going on semester we can meet as a subcommittee or those who are on it and talk about what we want to see from mentorship programs like this so that before the program expires we can give direction to administration of what we want to see uh so that way there isn't this semester long Gap in services for students um what do other trustees think of that I'm not comfortable with that um once you go into a contractual agreement we're in a contractual agreement so if this contract the way it's presented is
166the way it's presented we won't have any of those issues addressed until some of those revisions are made so so at least at present from what I'm hearing from Mr Garrett you would be able to receive that information by our in two weeks in our at our next board meeting I I would work to get as many of these questions answered my goal being 100% by that meeting and um depending also you know I mean these would be clearly um the feedback is appreciated and the focus is appreciated and at minimum based on the decision of the board tonight these would be items that as understanding the importance of that data and that information is that definitely whatever that followup to the success of this contract I would work that these metrics are embedded in
167that um no matter which direction uh the board chooses to go this even evening thank you truste sellers thank you Mr gett how how long do you think that it would realistically take to kind of iron out all these details I'd have it by next Friday I mean that would be my goal I mean I definit definitely I mean I'm going to get I'd get on it tomorrow um we'd get as many of these knocked out as quickly as possible things that needed a little bit more time we'd start building it um definitely would have it uh by the time that information is provided um as part of our normal board cycle um I I I hear some of the the concerns from the the rest of the board but at the same time I
168tend to agree with the trustee kfon that you know while things may not be perfect there is a a group who is in need right now and the longer we wait the longer we delay to get them the help that they need the further we're hurting them um I'm familiar with the fire place in fire chapy they're not a new organization they do a lot of great work in the community already helping people in crisis and after emergencies and disasters um I can't say that they meet every check box along the way but they do a lot of great work and I have a really hard time sitting back and saying hold on wait uh you need help just keep waiting I'm still figuring things out uh being that this is a six-month contract it
169gives us the the leeway to evaluate along the way establish the criterias that we're looking for and provide that service that is needed right now um so I would be in favor of supporting this motion making a motion to approve this tonight so so um I think trusty CIO had had a comment and then uh we'll entertain all all all motions I was going to make a motion okay so so uh please please uh make make your direct motion trusty K uh I move to table approval of the project stealth mentoring contract to the January 28th Board of Trustees meeting to return under action with information identifying the expected number of students to be served during the period of the contract identifying measurable outcomes of the contract and uh articulate uh how accountability of the
170services provided for under this contract uh will be measured so we have a motion by trustee uh CIO to table this to action at our next meeting in two weeks I second we have a motion by trusty Coro a second by trusty Chavez all in favor please say I I those opposed please say nay those abstaining motion carries 70 the item will return at that thank you sure uh superintendent Davis if I can can also um offer thank you Mr Garrett we didn't introduce him as he came up he's one of our administrators he works for school leadership with Dr Boatright it's Jeff Garrett thank you for on the spot doing that if I can um offer to the point that was made about worried about the timeline for this any opportunity when an item
171comes as information or you're reviewing the agenda and you have questions um please if you if you see them in advance sometimes you don't see them until you're hearing the discussion but if you see them in advance and send them a lot of what um is being asked for is inside of principal Young's single plan for student achievement the equity multiplier funds do require metrics they do requireed identified goals that are measurable so some of that we can pull some of it you asked for of the The Entity and so in this in between time anytime we have an information and then to action certainly we can delay it but I heard the the comments you're making there's anything that I can do with staff in between that's we're getting a kind of a list
172of those questions or some of those questions or the ideas of what you might need so that they can be brought in and and answered live you did a great job but I didn't equip you with with some of those details that could have been brought in so I want to give that offer to you as well being sensitive to the comments you made about about our timing of this um contracts do come information and action for you as often as possible thank you we now turn to our action items with our first item being accept gifts to District assistant superintendent nbal okay good evening uh the district has received uh several donations Central High School received three donations the first one is $250 for St George Greek Orthodox church for the ASB leadership second
173one is $40 from Richard and Eva de lasera for FFA project account and then the third one is1 18,000 from Joseph ke foundation for the F project accounts a River Bluff Elementary has received two gifts $23 from Costco for ASB and $11,000 from the wonderful company for the as ASB so Administration is recommending the board accept the gifts to the district I just want to sa for the record just to clarify it was a $1,250 uh gift from St George Greek Orthodox church for the ASB leadership so just want to appre appreciate them uh questions or comments from the board trusty kurant uh thank you president Singh uh I want to give a uh very special thank you to the Joseph Keith Burgess Foundation that is a very large and generous gift to our FFA
174project uh superintendent Davis um or um super kbal I'm not sure who who to address on this one um do we know uh is a project been identified for this uh donation already I'm going to actually defer to Dr Boatright who took a look at what Central West PL yes so I did um touch Spas with um principal Halterman um he is meeting with the a department um led by Chris Williams teacher Chris Chris Williams they'll be developing a list of um things that they are going to do with that um with that money I know one thing um for sure is they're looking at scholarships for students for ACT students okay nice and this would this be wrapped into the other projects we have for uh Central High the a or the a lab
175they are a related projects I don't know that they'll go into facilities is okay that that was the clarifying question I was looking for thank you okay mhm do I have a motion on this item motion by trusty sers second by truste Kon those in favor please say I I I those opposed please say nay those abstaining motion carries 70 thank you we move on to item number two adopt resolution 24 25-34 in the matter of board and superintendent commitment to ensure a safe learning for all superintendent David thank you uh the original resolution was approved by prior board in 201617 that was attached we did bring this item in December for review um there is a copy both at the back and at each of your seats of some uh feedback that we've been
176given over the week's time the attachment to the item was in its original form from the last meeting uh we did gather feedback and so if I can um turn it over to vice president CIO uh maybe to walk through some of the feedback added yes thank you um superintendent Davis so the goal of this resolution is to reaffirm um and in in my opinion and based on my revisions that I made to the resolution is to strengthen what we're doing and our commitment to our community and so with that you I think you do have a red line uh with the com with the revisions in blue so just changing the title to make clear that it's specifically um to address District students regard to make clear that we're providing uh and ensuring a
177safe learning for all students uh including and regardless of any immigration or citizenship status um the revision where it's the very first revision uh we maintain our commitment to remaining nonpartisan that was just removing where the allocation uh of that phrase or that item was um and expanding and reestablishing that our responsibility as an educational institution is to make sure that we are providing a safe environment for all of our students um we are required by law to have established policies uh there were there was at least one Senate bill that was passed uh in 2017 effective January 1st 2018 and we do have exist existing policies so a lot of my revisions occurred uh with respect to our commitments and what I did there was really strengthen um and provide a much stronger position
178where it says that we're not going to be soliciting or collecting information uh related to citizenship or immigration status um that we're not going to cooperate with immigration enforcement actions on site except as required by law or state or federal law um the second Point um again confirming that we've provided authority to the superintend attendant to be the person who determines when it is appropriate and complying with any existing um and and verifiable Federal Judicial warrant subpoenas or orders to release any information related to our students uh or our employees making sure that we're reviewing our policies uh and administrative regulations and where there's an opportunity to strengthen or update language um to be more inclusive uh that we're doing that and to make sure that we are training uh our staff across our district
179at every level so that they understand and know what to do if there is an immigration agent asking uh or seeking to enter um our district sites and then finally and all of this is in compliance with the law uh I do have copies of um the Senate bill because I'm just a nerd like that and have the model policies that the Attorney General um for the State of California published and updated uh December 4th or 6th um I think the one of those days um so I have a copy and many of my revisions were uh in conformance with the legislation and um the model policies and then the final revision the final two items here um that we're committing to do the second to last where it says the superintendent shall ensure Central
180Unified School District families are ined of the rights related to immigration enforcement um I think there's work that's already going to be uh happening related to that uh and I'm sorry last three so and then the very last one to make sure that then we are translating this this resolution to our um existing like highest population languages and then the third to last uh which I do want to point out because this is where there's again these are my recommended revisions and I hope that we you can all support them um ensuring that we are taking any um affirmative uh action to um oppose uh any immigration enforcement where the law allows us to and in compliance with any existing policies and regulations that we have um and again a lot of my revisions were
181just to highlight where there's already existing policy or regulations and law that require that we do this but where most of our staff may not be aware and this is happening across California many Educators don't know what what rights um our students have or our families have or we as a district have to say no we we require a warrant we need to verify or that's disruptive to our students um they are here to learn so I'm happy to go through and specifically answer any questions related to the revisions um that I made but that's kind of a high level overview of what I wanted to accomplish and the revisions that I that I'm recommending thank you thank you for spending that extra time and work uh trusty Kel uh questions or comments from from
182the board on this item trusty Kirk thank you trusty CIO these um updates to this policy are timely and important and um our students cannot wait for this so thank you for the clarification for the information and for bringing this to our attention so soon into the the year trusty kuron uh trusty CIO thank you for strengthening uh this resolution I am even more in support of it now um and I just want to address the public because because there is a real fear in our community about the immigration sweeps last week and what the future holds for our immigrant neighbors um because they are our community um they're our neighbors our friends our students and our families regardless of citizenship status I'm proud to support this resolution and and reaffirm our commitment that Central
183unified will continue to be a safe place for all students uh we'll follow the law the law is clear all students have a right to an education and to feel safe in our schools um so thank you for bringing this forward and uh thank you for uh strengthening it making it clear that we'll protect our students to the best of our ability regardless of citizenship status uh superintendent Davis do you want to add a comment well I do i' I'd like to add to this because our intention of bringing into December and getting it ready now as our students returned um on on Tuesday which is today still and um and there's been a lot of work to get ready and and this certainly leads it off and so if Dr Lopez could you talk
184about a few of the things um that are in place and and going to be happening with regard to this some of it training wise has already happened but yes as soon as we heard about what was happening in our communities and the fearce associated to this we attended a meeting at Fresno State in December uh to gather more input uh from other um uh community- based organ organizations uh we were able to bring that information back uh we are in the process of finalizing a pamphlet that is being translated as well in all languages to provide information to our community about the safeguards that they have uh in our district uh that we are creating a safe uh space for our students uh we also created a one pager and that was provided to
185all of our um site leadership as well as District that that information is uh again going over board policy administrative regulations to ensure that they are everyone is aware as to the fact that are students are protected while on our campus um we also discussed um the fact that uh we are protected areas and we discussed that uh specific memorandum language around that um we are also uh in the works of creating parent engagement opportunities virtual and non- virtual just in case individuals don't feel or feel fear to come to any of these events uh but we are also collaborating uh with the Mexican consulate and other individuals to be able to create um have access to some of the videos that they're creating in different languages so that information is also provided through videos
186rather than written some of our families that may not have be able to access that information um in written format um so we right away brought back as soon as we came back from the December um meeting informational meeting um the AR Associated to Student Records because that is one of the foundational ones that ensures that our Student Records are private information and uh parents give consent if they want that disclosed to anyone um so that was foundational in creating all of this information for the public thank you so much for sharing that Dr Lopez do I have a a trust secr Fone uh quick comment uh superintendent uh Davis when there is a you know uh school goes into lockdown we sent out a text alert to parents right I think it might be
187helpful um for our community um so they can uh feel safer that if in the ever there was a situation where we had immigration enforcement try to enter a school if we could send out a text alert to our parents let them know just so they can uh have that affirmation and feel safe from a verified source thank you for that truste Kant do I have a motion on this item I would like to make the motion I would like to Second oh let let me make the motion sure um for purposes of our minutes uh I move to approve resolution number 24 25-33 in the matter of the board and superintendent commitment to ensure safe learning for all district students regardless of immigration or citizenship status second we have a motion by trustee Kara
188we have a second by truste K those in favor please say I I those oppose nay those abstaining motion carries 70 thank you thank you everyone we move on to item number three approve outof State travel assistant superintendent Dr Boatright thank you this is an outof State travel request for Justin Garza high school art teacher Felicia Evans she will be attending upon your approval the National Art Education Association National Conference in Kentucky Administration is recommending the board approve this out ofate travel request questions or comments from the board do I have a motion so moved we have a motion by trusty sers I'll second we have a second by trustu those in favor please say I I those oppose nay those abstaining motion carries 7-0 thank you we move to item number four adopt revise
189board policies assistant superintendent Dr Lopez hello again tonight you have board policies 5113 and 5147 returning for Action Administration is recommending the approval of the board policies uh with the revisions made uh or suggested from our last meeting to allow students the opportunity to make up assignments for any absences whether excuse or unexcused thank you questions or comments from the board justy CA thank you for making those um updates I had very little revision so so I appreciate um you guys really focusing on making sure that there's alignment based on the policies that our board has passed to make sure that all students are provided an opportunity to complete um their homework regardless of their absences and and focusing on the fact that they're learning um and mastering the subject matter so thank you and
190I I do want to appreciate uh Dr Bo right because the the collaboration that came from that discussion was essential in US identifying that perhaps other policies um um live within Both Worlds Educational Services and my department thank you I'll move to approve we have a motion by trusty CUO second we have a second by trusty sers those in favor please say I I those oppose nay those abstaining motion carries 70 thank you we next move to hold a public hearing and adopt resolution 2425 d26 regarding dedication of easement to City of Fresno for the development of McKinley and life complete streets Project Director Rodriguez thank you uh board president and Board of Trustees and superintendent Davis tonight this item uh returns to you for your consideration uh and Adoption of board resolution 2425 d26
191and the request to hold a public hearing uh on this item for the McKinley ble complete uh streets project uh this item contains public easements that are necessary to be granted uh pursuant to head code 17556 at this time Administration uh requests that the Board of Trustees open this forum to hold the public hearing on the question of making the conveyance of easements to the City of Fresno uh and after the hearing consider and adopt the resolution 24 25-26 to approve the easements trusty kund thank you president Singh I actually sorry we're going to first hold a public hearing and then and then we'll have questions and comments from the board thank you so this time we'd like to uh open the public hearing uh if there are any uh questions comments or concerns from
192from our public with regards to these ements and just for our neut trust we do allow 30 seconds when our presentation is in at least 30 seconds for any members that may be logging on or calling remotely just so you know why they're silent board president um 30 seconds have passed and we have no callers at this time so now we will close the public hearing and open questions or comments from our uh trustees truste Kon uh thank you president Singh so um director Rodriguez the I I'm a big proponent of you know complete Street projects you know safety this is going to make um it a lot safer for students who live north of McKinley um uh Elementary to have a safe path to school um and also for for El Capitan uh however
193I was I was wondering what is the feasibility of expanding this complete Street project to the South uh West corner or the sorry the northwest corner of McKinley and blle because the neighborhood um to the southwest of those two schools a lot of those students walk to school and they do not have a safe path they are walking through dirt and in the winter when it's raining they're walking through mud or they're walking on the street um in facing incoming traffic so are we able to expand this project to the southwest of the schools so that's a good question yes uh the the project entails uh connecting a uh 5 foot uh walkway that that uh connects to an existing uh sidewalk on the on the south let me walk this back here on the
194Southeast corner of Cecilia and McKinley so and then it it it rides it rides along uh on the southern end of McKinley all the way to the traffic the proposed traffic signals uh that this this project would entail so yes there is provisions for that okay um excellent um that's really exciting do we know when this project will be completed so the city is waiting uh on on our decision here tonight uh as soon as they get the the easements uh recorded uh signed and recorded uh they're they are proposing because it's a grant and it has time limits they're proposing uh summer this summer of 2025 yeah all right and and I just want cuz I know Sicilia comes up again to the north of um El Capitan this is for the uh Southwest
195neighborhood of those schools or the North uh like on blle between Welden and McKinley so between Welden to blle sorry Welden to McKinley on the blle alignment y it also includes from blle to Sicilia on both sides of the street that they connect to existing uh walkways and Pathways that are already placed there by the city okay um yeah very very excited for this project um when we talk about safety for students you know we're often concerned about what happens in the classroom but their path to school is just as important and this is going to increase the walkability so um parents will be able to know that their kids are safe walking to school um or riding their bike um so I'm really really excited to approve this project and hopefully we can get
196it before the uh the uh start of the next school year no other questions do I have a motion so moved we have a motion by trust kuron second we have a second by trustee sers those in favor please say I I I those oppose nay those abstaining motion carries 70 we move to item number six approve the the renewal of garbage and recycling services with Mid Valley Disposal director bot uh good evening board president Singh and board members and superintendent Davis this item returns from the previous board meeting to approve the mid valy disposal contract for trash and recycle uh M valy has been the provider for our district for the past four years and the district is recommending the approval of this one-year extension uh that will be effective now as of February
1971st they will be holding the pricing for this month of our previous contract um Administration is recommending approval after I answer any questions the board may have questions or comments from the board make a motion to approve second we have a motion by trustee sers a second by truste CIO those in favor please say I I those oppose nay nay those abstaining motion carries 61 with a a from truste Kon thank you we move to item number seven approve expansion of Emer emerges Staffing contract assistant superintendent Dr Lopez hello the emerg contract being submitted supports the student wellness and provides uh support services for students and families in alignment to the student needs um some of our students have IEPs and these programs but some do not and they just uh are identified through our
198process our B process as you you have heard from other sites as needing extra support uh emergence Maximum healthc Care Staffing Services provides additional support to fulfill our par professional staffing needs in our district um or Staffing uh shortage we have contracted with this company since 2017 the expansion of the contract for an additional not to exceed amount of 350 uh 350,000 I apologize to be paid from the learning recovery educational block grant um Administration is recommending the board approv expansion of this emerg Staffing contract so we can continue to fulfill the needs um within our district questions or comments from the board I move to approve the expansion of the emerg Staffing contract we have a motion by truste K second we have a second by trustee sers those in favor please say I
199I those opposed say nay those abstaining motion carries 70 thank you we move to item number eight adopt resolution 2425 d32 certifying all proceedings in the 11524 general obligation bond election and designated citizen oversight committee assistant superintendent ball president County of election official has uh confirmed and certified the passage of measure x uh this resolution is to accept the result and extend the service of the ex uh existing Bo Bond committee to oversight of measure uh spending Administration is recommending the board adopt resolution d32 questions or comments from the board on this item trusty Kirk thank you president sing I had a question about the oversight committee you said we will be continuing on with a previous oversight committee yes there is a existing bond committee MH so that committee already is oversighted over over
200actually over supervising the other Bond expenses that this measure X will be another added uh Bond that's going to go to the oversight committee to oversee the expense and is that the way it is generally done yes you once you pass the bond you have to have an oversight committee oh I'm sorry the continuing of an over adding on the duties to an existing oversight committee is there ever an opportunity to uh review who is on that committee yes we we opened that up and we have a a couple of candidates so we we are looking to the candidates there's one more opening so we are looking into that okay thank you yeah truste Kon thank you president Singh uh what are the length of terms for these um committee members I have to get
201back to you with that information I think sounds like it's a rotating you know not everyone's up at the same time yes right yeah it would be helpful for us if we knew when these terms expire yeah any other question or motion on this item I'll move to adopt resolution 242 25-32 certifying all proceed uh proceedings in the 11 in the November 5th 2024 General obligation bond election and designating the citizen oversight committee we have a motion by trusty CA second we have a second by truste sers those in favor please say I I those oppose n those abstaining motion carries 70 thank you we move on to item number nine hold public hearing and adopt resolution 2425 d33 to submit a waiver request to State Board of Education relating to issuance of General obligation
202bonds assistant superintendent okay so this resolution would authorize the district to pursue a bonding capacity waor up to an amount of 4.34% of the district assess valuation current the limit from the State Board of Education for the bond principle is no more than 2 and a half% of the district assess valuation so the administration is recommending the board hold a public hearing and adopt a resolution 2425 d33 to submit a waiver request to State Board of Education relating to Insurance of General Bond obligation bonds thank you questions or comments from the board oh my apologies yes first we'll open open it up for a public hearing board president 30 seconds have passed and we have no callers at this time and trusty clerk do we have any comments from the audience no it's sorry trusty
203Kant not trusty kerk I don't know clerk Kon sorry no we uh president sing We have no comments from the public at this time thank you then with that we'll close the public hearing and now we open up to questions or comments from the board trusty sers Mr rickball can you explain why we need to apply for a waiver right so if we go to 2 and a half% we will only get 62 million of the 109 million that we have uh Bond capacity so if we apply for the waiver which is 4.34% then that way we can get our $109 million Bond assess based on the assess value So based on the assessed properties within the district right at a current 2 and a half that's the cap that is the cap from the
204state we get $62 million correct is that because we've essentially maxed out the amount that we can Bond No that that's the 2.5% is more of a state cap it's been there for 24 years that's one thing and other thing is our based on our assess value that's all we can get is 62 million so if our assess value was higher then 2 and a half% would would be enough so uh I'm kind of confused with this because we sat here months ago and had multiple presentations discussing the options of bond measures and this topic never came up actually if you look at the presentation on page seven we did talk about this uh uh the state uh Bond capacity 2 and a half% so if you we I don't have the presentation in that
205presentation that Mr Mark Ferell did I think the seventh page or the page number eight we had a little like a little blurp saying that the capacity is 2 and a half% and we have to go for a wer and if you look at the last three four Bond uh election we have here all of them had wers all of them we went for wers okay um my my concerns were that we sold this as it was going to cost the taxpayers no additional taxes that cost any no no impact how how is that can you explain that well the reason there's no impact is this is just the 2 and 1 half% is based on our district assessment so if we pull uh the 62 million there's no impact but because our assessment is
206higher if we do that 4.3% then we can pull uh the 109 million but there's no impact on the tax because it's based on assessment so our assessment gives us that that little uh lway that if we pull 4 4.34% we can pull more but there's no impact on the on the on our tax there's no impact I'm still not understanding that that you have a 2 and a half% limit right and that is going to generate $62 million right we are increasing or asking applying for a waiver that there there's no guarantee that we're going to get a waiver from the state possible but not guaranteed right right but the thing is it has all the time the last three times we got it and state usually gives it this is more of a
207state practice is it's just a cap that has been there for 24 years okay so at a 2 and a half% it's 62 million right increasing it to over 4% generates the $19 million that we proposed to the community right and there is no additional increase to Property Owners tax if you again if you look at the presentation in our presentation we talked about that we are we will be pulling 109 million so we did discuss that there is a cap but we're going to be doing the 4 4.34% so the page seven did talk about that this is the the the max we'll be pulling may I trust so so just just assistant superintendent B so so I have even clarification on trusty seller's question yeah so would the way in a in a
208yes or no there will be no impact to the current property uh owners in central unified whether if if we pass this waiver right it'll be extended as we talked about it the tax will be extended but no impact we are not increasing the tax rate sorry can you answer it in the yes or no forat yes there's more no impact okay okay so sorry uh trusty sellers may have had additional questions it'll it'll take uh I understand you're saying yes there's no impact yes there's no impact yes as I understood it in the presentations that the the payments is property owners are paying essentially will stay the same because other Bond measure payments are falling off yes yes that's correct what was the rate on those um last time I think it was 4.24%
209but I I'll double check on the last Bond uh wer was 4.24% but I I can check and get you that number and what is the current proposed ask that we're asking for 4.34 so 4.2 drops off and now we're paying at 4.3 y that doesn't equate the same to me well it's based on the assess value so if the assess value goes up then we'll need less money but because based on the what whatever the assess value is that's why via that 4.34% and based on the 109 million so on the note of the assessed values um you know I understand Prop 13 that property taxes can only increase 2% per year right uh but that doesn't apply to new construction when a first homeowner buys a new home they're assessed at current market
210value yeah and if a person was to purchase a home and move to the district whether or not it was a new home or not the county reassesses your taxes at current market value that's correct yes so when we're putting higher amounts on things is that not asking those new people to pay a higher amount than they normally would but that's because the assessment is done differently if you look at your um the property tax there are two part first part is the property tax the second part is the bond there's two part so the bond number are going to change yes your property tax is going to change but if you look at your property tax there's always a property tax and then you have Bond a b c whatever you have that number
211rate is not going to change okay so every property in the district pays the same amount right right yeah okay that's my questions at the moment thank you if any other questions um otherwise do I have a motion on set item so moved we have a motion by trusty kuron I'll second we have a second by truste Kirk those those in favor please say I I I those oppose nay nay those abstaining motion carry 61 with a name by truste sellers we move on to our information items actually I apologize we have to get an extension of time it's 10:30 but I don't think we're going to finish so I'll I'll move to extend our board meeting past 10:30 so we have a motion to extend our our time Beyond 10:30 from trusty Korea and
212I heard a second from trusty kuron and if I can just interject just for our new board members we have a policy that says our board meetings only go up to 10:30 p.m. that was before both of us joined and so when we're going to pass 10:30 we need to make a motion to extend our meeting thanks we have a motion by trusty CIO second by trusty Kon uh those in favor please say I I those oppos nay those abstaining motion carries 7-0 we move on to our information items our first item being to receive independent audit report for fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 assistant superintendent bball so we we have the district auditor LPS uh linger Peterson and shump to present our end of year um fiscal year 2324 audit and that's Mr
213Brett Harrison good evening everybody uh I represent the firm linger Peterson and Trum we were engaged by the district to perform an annual audit for the fiscal year ending June 30th 2024 uh I'll be brief for you uh I uh our audit consists of three main parts uh we audit the financial statements as a whole uh we our second part of the audit is we audit State compliance to ensure the district is in compliance with uh State requirements uh for Ed uh educational uh agencies and then the third part is uh for the federal funds we audit uh the district's compliance in uh in in accordance with Federal uh guidelines uh for federal monies received and expended uh the results of our audit uh is we had uh no findings uh nothing that Rose to
214the level of a finding in any of those three areas which is a good uh a good thing uh we were uh pleased with the results we uh were pleased with the cooperation we received from District Personnel uh I believe that the audit went very smoothly from our standpoint uh that is my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have thank you questions or comments from the board TR SEC fun thank you for presenting um can you please remind me why we uh went to an audit uh an uh annual audit is required uh for all school districts any educational agency it's a it's a it's a state requirement so it'll be it's not uh nothing's um all all educational agencies are required to go through an audit annual audit thank you
215so this is a routine audit not because there was a noticeable large issue that is correct okay thank you if no other questions um would we like this to return under uh it's it's under information would we like it to return under consent or or would people like more time under action I think action okay do they have to receive it you have it noted that this is information only it's just information only yeah okay okay sorry so it's only information thank you thank you thank you for for joining us next we move to item number two receive information regarding student board members superintendent Davis thank you this item is to begin a discussion for you as you know at the December 17th board meeting uh you were provided a petition from students and following
216uh educational code uh we have uh 60 days to uh review all of the petition candidates to um confirm that they are U meeting the criteria so we're in process of doing that um and have already received them on your behalf uh and then to develop um a process by which student board members would become included on um on this group and you'll see in the attachments tried to provide you a host of of resources uh the first one is a brief of just taking a look around the state of California I try to find six different districts that um have oriented their process in different ways so you could really see some of the options that are there to determine both qualifications um as well as the process for selection of a board member
217um or multiple board members you'll see that it's not exhaustive but at least all six of them took different approaches you see they have a different amount and I hope that helps you in in the dis discussion in addition to that we looked at our bylaws and don't currently have a bylaw in place and so this would be a great way to represent receipt of the petition and the required component that's due within those 60 days which is to um acknowledge that board member um involvement would be in in place in Central unified so you'll see both the sample from gamut and then U it's been prepared uh ready for any inclusion of of new information the fact sheet is also attached as is Ed code and so at this point we've we've kind of
218given you some ideas and now is time that that we would recommend you have discuss discussion or determine what your next steps would be our recommendation and also the requirement of being in receip of petition is it this return for Action next meeting um the the obligation of acknowledging that that a student board member or more um but at least one will become a part of this group so I answer any questions that I can in terms of the research of it and and then also get out of the way for you guys to discuss it thank you trusty Creo so first I apologize if I buture um his name but I just want to thank uh student de uh jol sing Ray and all of the other students um from Garza and the other
219high schools uh I'm ecstatic that we are now obligated to add a student trustee um I entertained the discussion a few years ago completely different board I was unfortunately in the super minority of that opinion so I'm I'm super excited so thank you to all of our students for doing that work and for our administrators for also doing the research and providing this information um I find the various processes interesting um and I obviously have my own opinions um I did look through the board bylaw uh I do have some revisions um and and just starting at the very beginning of the board bylaw um I think we need to I I would like to recommend to the board um that we provide our students credit elective course credit for service um the one revision
220we do need to make to the bylaw is that the um Ed codes were revised um last year the year before that to now allow that students receive monetary compensation so we do need to revise paragraph three um where it says that they shall not receive unless we decide to do that but if we're going to site to the legal Authority the legal authority to provide compensation is Ed code 35120 subsection F2 for anyone who's interested but I would recommend that we consider providing elective course credit we can revise our board policy accordingly um I'd also want to entertain the idea that we include two board two student um board trustees um and that we consider establishing I've gone back and forth about the term but I think we should consider a semester term uh
221again I I've gone back and forth because I don't think it's long enough for students to serve but my intention in in proposing the semester is that we try and have as many students participate and that as part of our subcommittee work um one of our subcommittees is responsible for engaging our students preparing them informing them um and then making sure that we are providing them the platform at our meetings to encourage their participation and discussion uh we are here to serve our students as an educational institution but yet we have zero student voice on our board so I'm really excited and I want to make sure that any administrative uh regulations that we adopt really incorporate uh and and highlight the value um of the student voice since that is what we would need
222to do um I think that the students need to elect uh those those students that are going to be serving on our board um I know that a lot of the processes that were provided there still some board participation in my opinion I don't think that that's appropriate or necessary um but those are my thoughts and recommendations thank you trusty sidu yes um just a piggyback off of trusty CUO um I agree with most I do uh feel as though there should be three one for each High School um that way each High School gets representation um other than that um I agree with the fact that uh the board shouldn't shouldn't uh interfere with deciding what the students uh elect truste Kon uh thank you president Singh um I feel like if we have
223three trustees we're still going to be excluding persing and uh Central online although because of the size of the electorate uh for a bit better term it's going to be hard for those students anyway so I think it may be unwieldy um um if we have any more than two but I would like to see a a yearlong term for student trustees just because that'll give these these students the time to find their voice um however I do think it would be pertinent if we could maybe appoint a a student trustee to fill out the remainder of the term this semester so we can have elections in the uh in the probably around like May or June for the next year of uh trustees I do also agree with trusty Careo that they should be
224given elective credit and I would be supportive uh if we were to give a compensation as well um because it essentially a uh paid internship um I do also think that it would be helpful if we have a requirement of a 2.0 GPA um I would entertain higher if there is a consensus for that but I don't think there will be um yeah uh and I'd say one to two with the uh election for the students as a whole um moving forward for the 25 26 school year and Beyond thank you truste Kon other comments or questions from the board Jesse CIO I mean we should all yield to Administration and if we need to ask our legal council but I I read the Ed code to say that we can only do one or
225the either provide elective credit or provide compensation I don't think that we can do both except that we are although it's not compensation but it's uh we are required to reimburse students um for any mileage and any expenses authorized expenses that would incur and so that's another area uh in our board bylaw that I would like to revise to say that student uh board members shall receive viage reimbursement because that's what we're required to do by law anyway I I I would second that clarification trusty Creo and I would then defer to elective credit because we only get compensated a few hundred bucks anyway so elective credit will be helpful for them in the long run that's what I thought just just furthering the the conversation I know we've had different proposals um I think
226I yeah I go back and forth I I absolutely see the opportunity for a to really find their voice over over the course of the year I think you know and and I really hope to entertain sort of a robust conversation I think at this moment I kind of uh angled towards the semester because as trusty sidu sort of pointed out while we have three larger Comprehensive High Schools we do have uh Central online and persing and I think my only con uh and and class yeah my apologies so so we have in in some ways six uh schools and I I think uh as at least was being uh promoted that uh the students should decide for themselves if we did like a rank order in terms of number of votes cast or one
227my My worry is that we would be severely um uh hurting the three smaller smaller schools class uh Central online and and ping in terms of if we did a a top vote getter uh sort of system Char okay so uh thank you president Singh so while I would still prefer a a year-long program in the interest of I think going where the consensus is going if we add another layer of complexity we can make it more Equitable um since we have four um I think yeah no five sites for uh seniors um or high schools that could be part of this uh student trustees I think if a student trustee is elected from a site let's say Justin Garza that that site would not be eligible for another student trustee until the next year
228so like if the garelic wins and they have a student trustee from Garza in the uh fall then they would not be eligible again until the next fall guaranteeing that there will at least be uh a change of the Guard potentially just throwing it out there what if we had permanent seats like semester one for instance for Central High Central East and spring semester for Garza and whatever other three hering SL online yeah maybe can someone clarify how many high schools we have we have six we have so so to the point that was being discussed one option for your kind of two by two would be um that the alternative campuses and we saw this in some of the models select a representative it might be from the online home school it might be
229from class or it could be from ping trusty Chavez I'm just wondering um just because I would hate to see those alternative schools kind of not be able to participate would it be possible to have a representative elected from all six high schools but then have one within that subgroup that they elect their voice that comes to actually be their voting person that actually comes to be the person present on the board like it could be a rotating Duty so that way we have all six high schools participating but then we have a representative that amongst themselves they determine who comes and I don't know if that's a rotating Duty it's just an idea so that that way we don't leave any high schools out trusty K trusty k i I think the issue with
230that is that if we have six high schools that that's six votes that means they'll always be stuck at a tie um potentially but also a root different trustee every meeting would mean that it'd be very difficult for any of them to find their voice and speak on behalf of the entire student body just because they're they're always going to feel new um so I think having a semester long term at minimum I still prefer yearlong would be the best for them being the best advocate for students we just have to figure out um how to equitably assign or or order you know which term they will come from trusty K trusty Chavez were you proposing a different student member at each board meeting no I didn't think I wasn't saying alternating every week I
231was just saying like it could be a rotating function where they quarterly change or something like that just so that that way we could rotate more students and we could have representation across all the high schools that's what I understood based on the term we establish so when we were at csba there was a session that I attended um I'll I'll share the PowerPoint um I want to say it's a district in San Diego a smaller District but they have a similar model that you're talking about where it's a student council um and they have representatives from all six high schools um I think they had uh maybe it's not as small because it might have been like seven or 14 students and two from each high school or something like that and then they're
232the ones electing was my understanding based on how their high schools are voting who then serves uh on the board and I'll pull that information and share it but that would be a model that I kind of was thinking about as well before I just didn't know what everyone else was thinking and it also means that you know we have to see whether there's enough student participation to have that type of model a student council who then it lacks for our um Board of Trustees but I like that I think that that works and I would still advocate for a semester term model um so that we allow more student participation and involvement and I'll reiterate I recognize that in order to to Really allow them to learn more and feel like they're part of
233our board I think a year long so it's a matter of deciding is it more important for us to have student representation from all of our campuses or is it more important they have a more real life experience of a full year serving on our board I don't know what the right answer is because I'm struggling with that trusty Kon in the interest of trying to move forward to consensus um do we have consensus that whether it's semester or year year long that if there are one to two trustees that maybe the following truste student trustee should not be from the same campus meaning if it's you know Central East and Central High one semester the next semester would be gar Garza plus one of our alternative sites allowing for more diversity so if I
234can ask uh so so I I hear your uh question trusty Kon I think ult like ultimately then what we're we're doing is we're in a certain way kind of jettisoning than that this particular student council sort of idea can I uh ask uh superintendent Davis there are certain requirements in with the law in terms of our response to the student petition at this particular meeting for instance could we this is our first conversation we could have this continue uh as a conversation because this is our first time going going at it we'll we'll continue this conversation what is the requirements by law in terms of uh what how we have to Res respond to the petition um and how much time would we have for instance to to come to a a final uh
235determination of uh how how we wish to um uh help help form uh and increase student voice so I did check on that because I think we had some questions and wanted to make sure that that uh we gave you the right direction for this um the legal opinion is that at the next meeting I can on your behalf receive the petition and begin to review and make sure all of the the um they're students they appear to be um and um you at the next meeting do need to act um in order to um acknowledge in some way it could be just action that um we will have at least one board member on the board and we're working on it it could be under the opes of approving the bylaw and here's our
236basic plan we don't have it all worked out it does not mean you have to appoint by this time and it does not mean it has to all be finished but you do have to publicly not only just acknowledge receipt but that this is our plan we're committed to doing it within those first 60 days trusty Heron um and legally can we appoint um for the remainder of this semester since that student trustee would not be filling a a full term whether it's semester or year long anyway do we have that legal Authority as a board I want to look at that and go back to the Ed code I think I was distracted by the bylaw because the bylaw is specific about um students having a part in um the selection of it um
237so so i' happy to follow up and look at that thank you um yeah if I can get that in the grid next time that'd be gray um and then as a clarifying point then if students were to nominate people uh Stu other other student trustees can we then appoint someone from that nomination pool would we be would that be within the law or Ed code we saw examples of that where students thank you I want to make sure I heard you where students nominated or voted for people and then there was somebody within that pool that was selected from okay yeah we saw some examples of that yeah so are you asking before the July first kind of establishment of a term or and and it's having two separate processes or are you asking
238just broadly if the board wants to approve and and be the one selecting that student trustee both so so I I want to know if the board has that Authority and then also um if that is something that we can do as we establish at over the next meeting and possibly further a election process for student trustees if for the purpose of getting that forward and make sure we have a student voice in the meantime including for that process if we can appoint a student trustee at the next board meeting to fill the remainder of this semester they can be part of that process and the January 28th meeting if it would have to be after this item is approved I imagine so then it would be the February 11th meeting we could potentially appoint
239someone to fill the remainder of this semester and then have the full process we eventually approve on for the next uh school year or semester and and the point I want to follow up on when you're looking at the board balla 9150 Education Code 35012 on the first page of it does read a student board member shall be chosen by students enrolled in the district's high schools in accordance with procedures prescribed by the board so you could select from those that they selected from or or vice versa but um to uh just go directly to appointing I think I need to dig further into that Education Code if you could get that if you could get that from the next meeting then thank you trusty Kirk thank you I was wondering in our rush to
240get a student onto our board this semester are we doing a disservice by rushing them in a nomination process um in three weeks so do you want me to respond to that it was just kind of a general question is is is the impetus is the importance to get them on right away or to establish a process that is that has longevity that honors the the the letter of the law so I would like to establish a process but also I would like to have it sounds like whatever process we have would not really be for this semester so I would like to have a student voice this semester on the board um for that partial term which you do see sometimes in other you know adult governments you know someone being appointed to fill
241out a remainder of a term I understand I just want to make sure that we are not in our haste to add student voice limiting their ability for someone who may not be ready in two weeks to maybe put up a nomination but maybe after March maybe after word of this has gotten out that the board is in support and is working on a policy that that's the time that students can really rally at their high school for that support giving them such a very tight timeline as an adult even is difficult and to put that on our students just coming back to school getting ready for exams in 61 days um are we asking our students to do something uh to satisfy our desire to have immediate voice instead of putting in a process
242that allows the students to choose who their voice is even if they have to wait until the next until August trusty Creo and then trusty sers because I've served on this board for six years and I've been wanting a student trustee since day one of election it's more important for me to make sure that we establish a process and we establish a precedent of following that process and Grant students The Voice which is as much as I I'd love to figure out how do we get a student voice now my fear would be that that's going to create gaps and we're going to be so rushed that are there going there's going to be um potential issues or the ability of the next board that's not us to really dismantle this pretty quickly um or
243to be able to point any deficiencies or set up our students not to succeed and we're going to get pushed back um next board members will get pushed back or when you all are running for reelection from our community um against that so for me it's important and what I'd like to see happen is that we adopt a board policy by our next board meeting uh January 28th I think that's absolutely feasible I think we can all we're all adults we can take two weeks to decide do we want one or two um I really suggest that we decide to have to I don't think we have to establish the term in our board bylaw um but at least just the param of what that looks like um to confirm and in response to our
244students to say this board is committed to having a student voice and potentially building some opportunity to get some feedback from our students to develop what that election process looks like um I am concerned that if we rush this because we have so many things happening Administration is going to be limited in the support that they can provide us our students are going to suffer and trying to get student voice their voice is going to get lost thank you truste sers I was just going to ask it it seems like we have some students who are very passionate about this and have driven this uh effort is is it possible um like trusty Kon is saying to appoint someone to operate as a liaison or some sort that you know the all of us adults
245were sitting here making decisions of how we should do things and I don't think any one of us have stopped ask and pull the kids or students what do you guys Envision what is your ideas do you have something in mind already and having somebody who is their peer and can connect with students might get more traction more conversation than any one of us or a school administrator saying you what what would you guys like I think uh superintendent uh Davis had uh some information she wanted to provide so I read my notes from our legal council uh and pursuant to Ed code at the next meeting you are required to order the inclusion within the membership of the governing board as I was mentioning with at least one pupil member you do not have
246to say how many um uh and then it says further the pupil pupils who are ultimately appointed to the board shall be chosen by the pupils enrolled in the high school or schools in of the school district in accordance with the policies procedures um prescribed by the governing board and I have the subsection D7 and so if um I I will follow up and ask again but as I read that um it really does make clear that that bylaw is important to have as the first step and that students do have a role um prior to you identifying who would be on the board so as so just to provide Administration Clarity in terms of what uh we're we're looking for so we will get um more information very specific to uh can we have
247a liaz on or or or or does does the board have have even the ability to to appoint uh at all and our and will return for action and and and uh at our next board member sorry at our next board meeting will be um us making a decision on the format of what the uh board policy would potentially look like thank you if if you take a look at the board bylaw sample it will walk you through the types of things that you'll need to be ready to answer or agree upon um in terms of how many what the qualifications are and what the process is that is embedded in in policy uh and um I I that where I extracted a lot of the notes for you so I'll try to gather the
248policies that those districts have as well and just want to again thank all of our high school students at all of our six sites but but especially our guards of students D Jing R and others that took a leadership role in terms of GA gathering the signatures for us to be having this conversation we move on to item number three receive information regarding naming of the new elementary school at Shields and broley superintendent Davis thank you this is an item that uh we are eager to uh get some direction on uh there are a lot of documents this spring as we're preparing the facility as as director Rodriguez and and team are getting ready uh that that we need to start having the name of the school attached to and we need to start working
249with the incoming students uh to generate excitement we have events that are beginning as early as this month at our schools um for who are receiving new students um and so uh in instead of bringing you the solution I wanted to just pose the the item to you all I did attach the board policy on naming of a facility that is uh within policy of what the criteria might be but as you'll notice in it it really does not indicate in what process to go about in naming in Prior uh if youve followed or been a part of some of you have in Prior naming of uh schools uh the surveys have been used uh whether or not they're effective I think is is for you to discuss on what would be best for this
250so turn it over to you all questions or comments from the board trusty Kirk I think trusty sellers beat me to the hand raise you can go in my question is do we have a process for this we have a a board policy but do we have a process sorry so we have used a process and the process that we used in the past was we created a survey that went out to the community for a period of time we advertised it soliciting um uh names that could be uh that met the criteria of the policy we described what the the policy was um the only if a survey was used the only adjustment I would make that was not part of our practice in the past is I would also um suggest a question
251be asked really specific to the criteria and what criteria matters most to you because sometimes it might not be the name but there there could be interest in um what which criteria is most important to the community U those get gathered they get brought into here we have people who have come in and spoken um specifically to this item and shared what their wishes were what their recommendations were and then uh we compile those we compile the frequency at those which that came up gave that to you all and then there was discussion um in addition to that we've also um been through a process of renaming schools and in that example um there was really more discussion and recommendation that came from the Das from board members in terms of um some of the
252ideas for naming and that was part of the discussion so i' would say we really had two options so far try sers superintendent Davis just answered my question I was going to ask if if uh we could solicit input from the community first uh and then take the submissions that fall in line with uh board policy um and and put out a survey for some Fe feedback Jesse Korea so that's what we've done in the past it was painful um and I love getting our committee input uh it's really important to me as much as as our students but I think what I I would recommend and I'd like to see if there's a majority support is that we kind of establish some framework um and and provide a more guided response that we identify
253what what's important for us um I know that this is our second meeting as a board as a whole and this new board but I it seems to me that there is some criteria that we can all agree on and there's some values um that we can all agree on and I think we need to be more narrow in our questions versus this open-ended because what it became was a an essence of popularity contest of this name had 10 people uh submitting and it's a matter also when we're talking about equity and inclusion of who has access who understands the the processes that we're going through who can respond and technology and articulating why they're asking for that name rather than being more intentional in you know if if we want to represent a certain
254Community or things of that nature um and what I would Envision would be something like what was done for and I'm probably going to need someone to correct me Central High with her m cop where the students voted but the students were provided four options to vote from and to select um I know we received feedback and I received a lot of feedback they were not happy but I do think that we need to control that more um because then people are upset that we've asked them for feedback and then we completely ignored them and in some situations we did uh and I stand by our decisions we had to because it wasn't the best option for our district and the board the majority of the board decided that that was the best option so
255I would caution us to just do an open-ended uh and provide more guidance to say here here is the criteria we're looking at here are some if we come up with names or say here are like the five names I don't know something more substantial than just send me whatever you want to call it I mean we can always call it Yia Kio Elementary but no I I completely agree with you I I should have clarified more that's kind of what I was envisioning so uh can I ask uh superintendent Davis or or Administration um in terms of to make sure we order things in time for the opening of the school in in the fall when would we uh when when would we need to be have this decision made by so in the
256cover sheet we put no later than March 25th the actual planning was uh intended to be in February until the idea of kind of revamping this came out up um March 25th is late we will make that work if that works for you all because we want to give you time to do it if it can be done sooner it's really important for the other steps that are coming up so we'll live with March 25th but I do ask on behalf of Staff if if that if that can be done sooner we need it done sooner we do if uh if if we have a consensus can we um have this return under in information to uh give us a little bit more time in terms of developing and coming up with a criteria that
257that we would like um and continue with discussing about this trusty trusty Kon are we sure we don't want to just name it Central South I we may be sure thank you we move on to item number four receive information regarding the Western Association of schools and colleges uh was assistant superintendent Dr Boatright thank you so the Western Association of schools and colleges or wasque uh determined that the following schools metth the criteria for accreditation class received a three-year accreditation through 2027 which is the end of their current accreditation cycle and our Central online homeschool received accreditation through 2030 with a midcycle visit during the 2026 2027 school year and this item is coming to you tonight for information only questions or comments from the board great news thank you uh we move on to
258item number five receive information on nwaa map contract for 2024 2025 assistant superintendent Dr Boatright thank you so nwaa map is the progress monitoring assessment tool that we use for our secondary schools this measures achievement in Reading and math um this contract is coming forward this is one year only the contract began um on July 1st so it expires on June of 2025 Administration is recommending that this item be placed on the January 28th board agenda for action and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have questions or comments on this particular item trusty Cel so what is is um the service for so this is the benchmarking system that we use for our Secondary School sites so for our primary or Elementary School sites we have I ready and for our 7th through
25912th grade students we have um nwea map okay and how does this help us provide better services or yes so what it does is it measures sort of a baseline how students start start the school year academically in ela and math and then we administer it three times throughout the school year and we can check their progress as we go along so the idea is that we are um intervening when necessary before we get to the end of the school year with the summi of State assessment okay thank you if there's uh no objection we can have this return under consent yes thank you we move on to item number six receive information regarding School accountability report cards assistant superint or sorry area administrators Pennington and Garrett and Mr and Fowler think Mr Fowler stepped
260out good evening um board president Singh superintendent Davis and members on the board Welcome to our new board members um the school accountability report card or SARS also known as SARS are a requirement for schools receiving state and federal funding the purpose of the um report card is to provide parents and the community with important information about each School the administration is recommending approval of these um of the sarks um and for uh this item to be placed on the January 28th agenda for action and I am happy we are happy to answer any questions you may have questions or comments uh from the board at this time in order just to uh give enough time to review we'll have this return under action okay thank you area administrators thank you we move on to
261item number seven receive information regarding student and Family Services site coordinator job description assistant superintendent Dr Lopez the student and Family Service site coordinator job description presented to you this evening aligns with the California Community Schools partnership program ccpp Grant that was received by our district uh and ensures appropriate running of the ccpp at five of the six School sites that receive this grant funding these positions will ensure five of the sites identified as Community Schools have the appropriate support to lead the program and compliance with the grant as a reminder Teague Elementary is the site that is provided with a TOA a teacher on special assignment the total cost impact uh is about $128,900 per site uh again with the exception of Teague uh this includes benefits the funding aligns to the total net
262funding as described uh for Staffing for the purpose of the implementation of the grant under the grant that was approved by the state so Administration is recommending that this item be placed on the January 28th 2025 board agenda for action and it will accompany the stepping column uh that aligns to that um funding questions or comments for the board on this item trusty kund uh thank you president Singh uh Dr Lopez are we applying for this this one money is coming from a grant right so are we applying for the next round of grant funding after this expires so this is the last round I believe this year that is being provided uh however we are currently implementing with this five sites themselves we created a lot of structural um supports that needed to be
263created in order for the Run uh for the program to run smoothly and efficiently uh and we are in the process of barely approving some of these uh pieces that are essential to Running of the program so we wanted to see the implementation of this program by end of year to determine any further applications however one of the pillars under this grant is the uh elop expanded learning opportunities and the wellness and we're currently part of the Fresno County Superintendent of Schools Nick um for early matters which creates that well-being component and our expanded learning program also feeds into that pillar so what we are looking at is how do we create um sustainability with the grants that we have um and also continue seeking out further grants thank you because sustainability is an issue
264for me because if we're applying for this Grant and we're spending most of the money on staff but we only have this grant for one year does that mean we're hiring all these people for one year how do we plan to maintain these positions so this was written into the 5year grant uh and it all allocates the exact funding every single year to the site for this Staffing purpose so this was already allocated and uh described in the plan we are however submitting something to the state to Showcase that currently our supervisor of Community Schools is also supporting with elop so we are looking to do a 50/50 split and that that money goes back to the sites uh our sites should be receiving about $100,000 as it is of funding to use for whatever
265needs are arising from from the needs assessments thank you and then um this position I believe we're uh Hiring Our uh student and Family Service site coordinator which are a classified supervisory um classification how is that different from the Family Outreach Leon in their uh job duties so this position coordinates supports so our family Outreach lay us on support um interpreting sometimes um but also provide supports to the families as to where they can go to get the help uh the coordinators are in charge of uh actually establishing a committee running a committee being able to find supports in the community bringing those supports into the school sites so it's a little different for our fols we do month monthly meetings where we provide a lot of the supports and a lot of the this
266is where you can guide the family for this kind of service thank you I'll have further questions next meeting okay any other questions on this item uh trusty Kon uh if you have have additional questions would we like this for Action yes I would thank you okay thank you so we move on to question uh sorry item number eight receive information on cour of Lee Williams uniform complaint procedure director uh English good evening again superintendent Davis board members and president Chan I'm here to present information regarding the quarterly information on the Williams report principles and departments are compiling information for the second quarter and this information will show whether there are deficiencies that have been reported Administration is recommending that this item be placed on the next board agenda January 28th 2025 for a public
267hearing as well as the approval of the quarterly Williams uniformed complaint procedure thank you questions or comments for the board then we'll have this return as a public hearing at the next meeting thank you than you we move on to item number nine receive information on the 2025 2026 annual renewal of participation in the super Co-op jpa director Engle good evening superintendent Davis and members of the board um tonight I'm bringing you information for the 25 26 annual renewal of participation in the super Co-op jpa um Administration is recommending approval and I'd be happy to answer any questions questions or comments from the board trusty Creo can you give us just a a short overview of what this is how we use this what is it for okay so the super Co-op is a um
268purchasing Co-op for our Commodities that we use utilize in schools we are we consist of 284 districts within California and in um our region Region 3 I have 64 districts under under um my region and we collaborate um purchase our you our Commodities through USDA to get better pricing thank you if no other questions or comments can we have this return under consent yes thank you next number 10 receive information regarding labor compliance services for Justin Garza High School Vis Visual and Performing Arts project 2324 d106 director Rodriguez good even good evening again uh and thank you board president uh members members of the board and uh superintendent Davis for your information tonight the district has received a proposal uh from qk engineering for labor compliance services that are required uh by the California Department
269of industrial relations for the Visual and Performing Arts project at Justin Garza High School in California anyone working on a Public's Works project must be paid uh prevailing wages as determined by the uh the department of the industrial uh relations uh it is estimated that on this particular project there will be 11 uh Prime uh contractors and 26 subcontractors for the duration of the project uh qk will review certified payrolls for compliance uh with state and federal labor laws including apprenticeship requirements uh for each contractor working on the project UK will also Monitor and enforce prevailing wage requirements on public works projects as uh described in uh labor code section SE uh 1771 administrations recommended this item be placed on the January 28th uh 2025 board agenda for Action uh which is necessary to complete
270the project and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have questions or comments from the board on this item generally on the size of this I like these on action but uh if there are no questions at all then we can have it return under consent yeah and anyone will inform me if they have any they want any further elaboration thank you director Rodriguez thank you next we move on to item number 11 receive information regarding Furniture proposal for shield and broley Elementary School the director with the impeccable suit Dr director Rodriguez well thank you board president I compliment uh for your uh information tonight is a uh meteor education Furniture proposal for the classroom and administration furniture for Shields and Broly Elementary School what is not attached uh is the outdoor furniture
271proposal uh for the school and we anticipate on receiving at the end of the week to attach to this item when it comes back for Action uh the furniture is needed uh for the new the new site and and the vendor will not order the furniture until a purchase order is issued Administration is recommending uh that this item return on January 28 2025 for AC and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have on this item trusty sers sir I know with the covid there was some impact to the supply chain and inventories is is we still operating in that realm or we'll have this full order on time it's gotten better so they've guarant guaranteed me a time um I just need to have me diligent on my end to actually be
272checking in on a bi-weekly basis just to see where we're at okay and then uh this is every piece of furniture that the school's going to need for the inside with the ex exception of the the items you listed that's correct you're correct okay thank you you're welcome no other questions um again generally because of the size I like to put on underaction but I'll keep under consent and one of you will notify me if if you need additional review thank you thank you thank you director Rodriguez we turn to item number 12 receive information regarding purchase of classroom furniture for Central High School director bot good evening again board members uh tonight I'm bringing an item for purchasing classroom furniture for Central High School uh the district has completed a Furniture assessment for the
273district and based on that assessment the administration is recommending replacement of classroom furniture at Central High School would receive new student chairs and tables uh and the furniture would be purchased through meteor Furniture using a Omnia purchasing contract uh the cost of the furniture replacement is $346,950 4 uh Administration is recommending this item be placed on the January 28th 2025 board meeting after I answer any questions the board may have questions or comments from the board Jesse K is this sufficient to replace all the furniture at Central High and to support the new student enrollment that will be directed there uh it's enough to support the new the central Hive for what's going to be there it does not replace all furniture replaces all classroom Furniture in majority of what they're going to be needing
274um they have a lot of old desk single desk and combo desk so it's not really work for the learning environment now so these tables and chairs will allow them to set up for what they'll need uh but this will take care of a majority teacher desk and some of the other stuff will still need to be coming yeah do you happen to know and I didn't ask this beforehand so you may not know um when was the last time we replaced that furniture because I don't recall seeing anything similar and in the time that I've been here no um I couldn't find anything of what we've had any record of when we did the assessment the average age was approximately 20 years okay wow do we anticipate that we'll see another item since this
275is or is there is there a reason why we're not replacing the entire uh Furniture um the the cost for the entire for a high school we're talking closer to about I would say approximately 800 to about a million dollars okay um do we intend to do this in phases then yeah um I did that last year we did it's only been a year and I can't remember but uh we did one uh we did Hound Kerney classroom Furniture uh then we did some cafeteria tables so we are going to take a bu out a bit at a time to deferred maintenance and through these op these projects throughout the years yeah and I think we've done the same thing for some of the other campuses in the last uh three years that sounds familiar
276to me okay thank you no other question we'll have this return under consent as well yes thank you director bot we turn to then item number 13 receive information regarding deferred maintenance director bot uh good evening again board members uh as part of our 2024 2025 deferred maintenance plan that the board approved we have a project that requires board approval Madison Elementary carpet replacement project will replace carpet um Miss typo it says 14 but it's actually 17 classrooms um and we will be utilizing Cass the California multiple award schedule contract uh to procure and install this carpet the cost of this project will be $144,800 71 and will be paid out of the Deferred maintenance fund uh Administration is recommending this item be placed on the January 28th 2025 board meeting after I answer any
277questions the board may have trusty k then trusty Kon um what's the expected timeline um for getting this done um it'll take them approximately three weeks to get the work done and it's going to be um we're going to focus right at spring break and um take care of the sites or the classrooms that are being used during the two weeks of spring break and then the one week where we can Shuffle around um any chance you happened to know when was the last time we replaced that carpet um in the Portables no but the site did get carpet and flooring when it got modernized it's just since the majority of these classrooms are Portables they did not yeah um okay thank you another reason for your love of Portables trusty Kon thank you presen
278sing um so for this project uh did we go out to bid for this no we going to be using the cast the California multiple award schedule can you please explain yeah so uh the California multiple work schedule is a um contracts that the state of California has already uh competitively bid and are available for public agencies to use so these this service was already bid out um and the state vetted did all the pretty much the same exact thing we would have done and we're able to um use them uh there's a lot of um guidelines uh for Cass in the previous item I had mentioned in Omnia purchasing contract there's different guidelines for that and different guidelines for CS great thank you no other questions we'll have this return under consent as well
279thank you director bot we now turn to Advanced planning thank you thank you the calendar is attached and I will just um to orient I don't always say things about this calendar but I do try to update it based on items that you bring up for example tonight there was a request by end of semester for a report about our inclusion and diversity work and so we'll talk as a team and then add that to this calendar I did notice as I was looking at it that February 4th we do have a reserve date for a board Workshop so um probably need to determine whether or not uh that needs to be on people's calendars and then if I can also note I I'll talk to the uh uh individuals that identified or were identified
280for the subcommittee for student achievement I think we've got a that is the remaining group have got to figure out on a a date and time that's working we're having a little trouble on that because I know the rest of you want all of those dates on your calendar for subcommittee so we'll get that going I'd like to have it by the 28th I think we'll get it figured out tonight thank you additional information and closing comments for any of the board members so I think um the principal from heren Barstow in terms of his comments about uh in some ways the power of when a student's able to sort of reclassify um really reminded me of kind of an earlier conversation we we had once had in terms of exploring uh potentially dual immersion
281for for our schools if there uh is a desire for the board I would love for that to have an information item uh in the future on dual immersion potentially before the end of the school year there there is a strong desire um before the end of the school year so we'll we'll we'll figure a way to get that agenda for a future meeting and with that um our next meeting our next regular board meeting will be held here on Tuesday January 28th 2025 at 6 PM for close session 7 p.m. for public session uh at the central unified district office here in room 133 we will be now adjourning back to close session and then reconvening before final adjournment thank you all for joining us e e e